THE VETERINARY ART' IN INDIA. 
54S 
it absorbs it, and the fluid ascends considerably higher than its 
own surface, which proceeds from the capillary structure of the 
sugar. 
To account for this peculiar distinction, it is supposed that the 
lacteals have muscular orifices, which are affected by certain 
principles ; consequently they will contract on heterogeneous 
fluids, and absorb those which are homogeneous. 
It is also imagined that they take their rise from arteries, as 
frequently, on injecting of arteries in glands w here these vessels 
are numerous, the absorbents will also be filled ; and Mr. Coleman 
mentions it as no very uncommon circumstance, to find blood in 
the thoracic duct of a horse. # 
Thus, having finished the outlines of the circulation, I shall 
proceed to the diseases of the respective parts. 
[To be continued.] 
* A number of very ingenious experiments have been made to prove that 
these vessels have the power to decompose fluids when they are received 
into the bowels ; and the gases of which the fluid is composed are circulated 
by these vessels, and again recomposed into fluids or solids of other pro- 
perties. If so, the bowels act on a similar principle with the lungs, with 
this difference — that the lungs supply only oxygen to the blood, and a small 
quantity of water which we breathe ; while the bowels, by the same vital 
power, decompose the fluids that we receive in the form of nourishment ; 
and their aeriform fluids combining in other proportions, compose other 
fluids requisite for the animal system. I must confess that I much in- 
cline to this opinion, as.it corresponds with the operations of Nature as far 
as they are known. Vegetables, oily and other nutritious productions, are 
but a variety in the combination of elastic fluids ; which principle is not 
only found to exist in the vegetable world, but likewise in the animal. 
Putrefaction is but the decomposition of an animal or vegetable substance, 
yielding its materials in their original form, to be again occupied in the 
works of Nature : consequently, every solid or fluid in the body is but 
a variety in the affinity and combination of these fluids. 
