160 
B. F. KING. 
LYMPHATICS. 
By Dr. B. F. King, Little Silver, N. J. 
(A Paper read before the Veterinary Medical Association of New Jersey). 
The lymphatics are comprised in an arrangement of ves¬ 
sels accompanying the venous system throughout the body, 
and are divided into two groups, consisting of the lymphatics 
proper and the lacteals. The latter are confined to the small 
intestines, while the former are found in all parts of the 
anatomy, excepting the brain, eyes, cartilages, tendons, the 
horns or nails, and the hair, and constitutes what is termed 
the absorbent system. The history of the discovery of this 
system of absorbent vessels dates from the vague allusions 
made by Hippocrates, Aristotle and others ; to the descrip¬ 
tion of the thoracic duct in the middle of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury by Eustachius ; and finally, to the discovery of the lac¬ 
teals by Asellius, in 1622, and is more interesting in an ana¬ 
tomical than in a physiological point ol view. Our knowledge 
of the anatomy of the absorbents dates from the discovery of 
the thoracic duct and of the lacteals, by Asellius, whose his¬ 
tory of these vessels, as carriers of nutritive matter from the 
intestinal canal jto the general system, was published in 1649. 
Pecquet discovered the receptacle for chyle, and demon¬ 
strated that the lacteals did not pass the liver, but emptied 
the chyle into the thoracic duct, by which it was finally con¬ 
veyed to the venous system, in 1651. 
The history of the absorbents was more fully completed 
by Rudbeck, who discovered a system of vessels carrying a 
colorless fluid through all parts of the body, and also demon¬ 
strated their identity with the lacteals. They were after¬ 
ward studied carefully by Bartholinus, who gave them the 
name of lymphatics. The old idea, which dates from the dis¬ 
covery by Asellus and Pecquet, that the lacteals absorb all the 
products of digestion, was overthrown by Magendie and others, 
who experimented upon vascular absorption (one of the most 
difficult problems in anatomy) in order to determine the # situ- 
ation and origin of the lymphatics in different parts of the sys- 
