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Show 78 Tim Lymp/mfic Glands. Tbc Lympbaiic G lands. mind than the first mentioned glands, and sometimes even the second ; but we know of no way by which the mind can influence mucular motion, or 79 comes almost in contact with the gland, it splits, or resolves itselfinto radiated branches, similar to those by which it originated. These, like glandular secretion, than by means of the nerves; besides, my dissection so many fingers as it were, lay hold of the gland, and sink into its sub- of the nerve going to the lactrymal glands, proves that the nerve ramifics principally in the gland, and does not merely go through it, in its way to other parts. Scrophulous snppurations ofthe glands giving little or no pain, is, however, by no means an argument that they have not considerable feeling. In order that an inflamation shall be able to give pain, it is no. cessary that its progress keep pace with the rate of our ordinary sensation. Ifa gun bullet passes through the body with great velocity, it pro- duces no pain, because the rapidity of the motion is greater than that which we have been accustomed tojudge accurately of. Hence a soldier is shot stance. Mr. IIcwson had an idea that there were lymphatics which entered the in the field of battle, but does not perceive it at the time. On the other hand, the pressure of a hard body shall be sufficient to producefin ulcer in the skin; but we feel no pain till the ulcer is produced, because this is effected by \‘ery slow degrees, and takes up a considerable time. It is for the same reason that scrophulous suppuration of the glands gives so very little pain. A lymphatic vessel, arising from the surface of the intestines or skin, or any other surface, and terminating in a gland, is termed by anatomists the ms illfcrmr, because it brings fluids into the gland. On the mesen- tery, the lacteals run but a very little way before they pass into glands; thoracic duct, without having passed through any gland; and that the duct might be injected from the great toe, without one gland being filled in the whole course of the vessels. I have injected the thoracic duct, from lym- phatic vessels on the back, without injecting any gland,- but I do not be- lieve that this is possible any where else. I confess, that I have injected lymphatic vessels from the great toe, which ran along the lower extremity, and passed under Paupart's ligament, without having previously entered any gland; but if they did not enter the glands before, they always entered them at that place, or other glands in the course ofthc iliac vessels; and ifit so happened that they passed these, they always terminated in the lumbar glands before they entered the duct. The same thing is true of the lymphatics of the arm. One may inject vessels from thc thumb, which shall run along the whole extremity, without entering any gland, till they come to the clavicle; but it never happens that they terminate in the thoracic duct, or the right trunks of the lymphatics, without having first pass- ed through the glands. Mr. Hewson meant, by this observation, to shew that the body might be poisoned by absorption of the venereal virus in the not more than two or three inches in the small intestines, and sometimes lymphatics, without ourhaving any previous information by a buboc; and not halfan inch in the great intestines; but on the extremities, the vas in- fercns runs frequently two or three feet before it arrives at the gland to which it belongs. A great number of vasa inferentia often enter one gland. I have seen not only those which run cutaneously, accompanying the vena saphena, it is true, that most commonly patients have been affected with lues but also those which run deeper, accompanying the artery, enter the same gland. The glands, I have said, are of an oval shape. In their more common situation in the body, one end of the oval is turned towards the thoracic duct, and the other from it. The vasa inferentia enter the gland by that end of the oval which is turned from the duct. When the vas inferens COIIICS venerea, without any previous buboc. When this happens, it does not prove that the lymphatics carried the poison to the thoracic duct, without having previously passed through any gland; for though we know that the venereal virus must pass from the buboc in the groin to the glands on the inside of Paupart's ligament, yet there is hardly an instance of these glands inflaming and suppurating. Why the glands in the cavity of the ab- domen do not inflame and suppurate on these occasions, I do not know; but it is very fortunate they do not; for if they suppurated, and the abscess burst into the cavity, suppuration of the cavity might be the consequence, and the patient would almost certainly be cut off. The |