The anatomy of the absorbing vessels of the human body / by William Cruikshank.

  • Cruickshank, William, 1745-1800.
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of the absorbing vessels of the human body / by William Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    the same time that it refuted the doctrine of absorption by red veins, in the strongest manner confirmed that of absorption by the lacteals. They quickly absorbed the milk, the solution of starch in water, coloured with indigo, the musk-water; in short, every fluid whicjr was thrown into the cavity of the intestines. I have already mentioned the arguments which induced Dr, Hunter to advance the doctrine, that lacteals and lymphatics were the same species of vessels, and that both absorbed. I come now to offer some additional proofs of this. An accustomed eye finds very little difficulty in distinguishing lymphatics from every other species of vessel, in men or quadrupeds; their valves, their general appearance, their inter- course with conglobate glands, sufficiently mark them. Now the lympha- tics are not only branches of the same trunk, as Dr, Hunter observed, but there is such a connection between them, such an anastomosis, that the fluids absorbed by the lacteals are in part transmitted to the lymphatics, and through them, at last, conveyed into the blood. A very remarkable in- stance of this kind I demonstrated at lecture in Windmill Street, in the year 1785. The lymphatics of the diaphragm, which also belong to the liver, were seen turgid with chyle, which they had received from the lac- teals, some of which were passing that way, towards the subclavian veins, A stronger proof that lymphatics are absorbents, is, that whenever fluids are extravasated on surfaces, or into cavities, or whenever such fluids pre- ternaturally distend their reservoirs, the lymphatics belonging to these sur- faces and cavities are found full of the same fluid. This is better demon- strated, when the fluids mentioned happen to be of a strong colour. Thus I have repeatedly seen, in animals dying of haemoptoe, and in the human subject itself, the lymphatics of the lungs, which at other times contain a transparent fluid, turgid with blood, which they had absorbed from the air- cells. Where gall-stones, in the ductus communis coledochus, or in the cystic duct, have prevented the bile from flowing into the intestines, and the gall-bladder, in consequence of this, became preternaturally distended with that fluid, I have also seen the lymphatics of that reservoir full of the bile they had absorbed from its cavity, Baron Haller asserts, that he had repeatedly seen the lymphatics, as well as the lacteals, full of the coloured fluid he had thrown into the living body. In animale, cui plena fuerunt aut