On the special function of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems : their vital import, and their bearing on health and disease / by Robert Willis.

  • Willis, Robert, 1799-1878.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the special function of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems : their vital import, and their bearing on health and disease / by Robert Willis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    87 the ducts ax’c the lacteals.* The contents of the nucleated cells of the intestines, it is to be observed, arc only white and milky when there is chyme, and that even of a certain de- sci’iption, present in the intestines; when there is none of this chyme present, their contents are transparent and colour- less, or noaj’ly so, as is also the product of their maturity and rupture, then entitled lymph, no longer chyle. Chyle, indeed, only differs from lymph in containing a relatively larger pro- portion of albuminous, granular, and fatty matter, which is exactly what might have been expected in the fluid that is bringing fresh pabulum for the use and maintenance of the economy, albumen being the representative of the azotized, as fat is of the non-azotized, elements of the animal body. I only pause here to observe that, notwithstanding the mass of fresh material with which the lacteals are charged, they still transport a fluid of much less density than the liquor sanguinis, and are, therefore, in a condition to execute the important oflB.ee which I have assigned to the lymphatic system generally.f The anatomical distribution of the lymphatic vessels is in * Doellinger appears to have been the first who approached the truth of this matter. He held that the villi of the intestines incessantly reproduced on their exterior or intestinal aspect by the aggregation of particles of chyme, in the same way as the germinal membrane of the embryo grows by the apposition of par- ticles of the yolk, underwent in the same measure solution on their interior, and by this process fornied the chyle of the lacteals. This is the germ of an idea that has proved most fortunately prolific since Doellinger wrote if/ide Froriep’s Notizen, Bd. 1, Nov. 2, 1828). Had he but viewed the aggregations of nucleated cells which compose the intestinal villi as derived from the common nutrient fluid, he would have anticipated Purkinje in his beautiful views of the intimate nature of glandular secretion. {Vide Versammlung der Naturforscher und Aertzte Prag. 1837, in Isis von Oken, No. 7, 1838, p. 573.) Views that have very re- cently been most satisfactorily extended and variously demonstrated by Mr Good- sir. {Vide Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xv. p. 295, 1842.) t Vide the analysis of lymph and of chyle procured by Mr Lane from the same animal at the same time, by G. 0. Rees, M.D., F.R.S., in London Medical Gazette; and Mr Lane’s Article, ‘ Tlie Lymphatic System,’ in Todd’s Cyclo- pedia of Anatomy and Physiology.