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Show 3a tatics, Hist/(try ty" tbe Lacleal: and Lympl una ant altera sectione. Nec vero (la, certe nullus mensis abieril sine viva factum periculum, in fehbus, in aliis is plurim brutis in canibus tantum, in pascentibus. In vaccts pim- jam m agnis qua lactentibus adhuc qua herba ua. Quln equus ctlam hutc uni ret exquls s verita ue aliisq porcis et terea emptus c1 vivus exenteratus." seen the human lacteals: the It does not appear, that Asellius had ever that time practised. Haller at not dissection of dead human bodies was the year 1600, the Republic about that mica, a Anato othec Bibli his says, in c for anatomists, omitted even the publi olil'adua, before that period famous ans were then engaged in war; dissections, from parsimony. The Germ t human bodies. Hence, says and the English had hardly begun to dissec " ut per quadraginta annos omy; e anat rativ compa for ess loudn he, arose a simum animalium medicopotis etiam rum vivo in anatomt- comparata usque rum scalpelli occupati fuerint." of In this situation of anatomy, Asellins, g the human lacteals. IIis en- course, could have no opportunity of seein living men, as he had living ed open have to him led d have thusiasm woul checked that inclination: " IIodogs; but he gravely informs us, that he hilus non timuere, non minem vivum quod tamen Erasistratus olim et Herop cum Celso existimo iorte ndumn etpia nefas qui am, incid or; nec incidifate issimarn inferre." atroc ue eamq m alicui peste ze artem praesidcm salutis human men, he inferred their ex- Though Asellius had not seen the laeteals in doctrine was far from istence from analogy, and firmly asserted it. But this crates and Galen, Hippo of ine doctr the and ved; recei ally being gener ines by the red veins, intest the bed from absor which taught that the chyle was dered by the more generally prevailed; and Asellius's vessels were consi ered at: greater number of anatomists as fictitious. Nor was this to be wond nts, but Harvey, the they were not only influenced from respect to the ancie , great discoverer of the circulation of the blood, then in his career of glory opposed the doctrine, and never believed the existence of Asellius's lac- teals. , " Apertum itaque est, chyluin, quo cuncta animalia nutriuntur ex in- lactt'stinis per venas meseraicas deferri, ncc opus esse ut novum iter venas r, prac- teas scilicct inquiramus, aliumve transitum in adultis comminiscamu " m mus. crtu habe comp pullo et ovo in ter cum quem In History ry' 11m Laclmls and Lymp/mticr. 35 In another place he says, " In plurimis animalibus chyliferi hi canales non omnino reperiuntur." " Neque in ullis omni tempore occur-rum, cum tamen vasa nutritioni destinata debeant necessaria omnibus animantibus, omnique tempore adesse." For several years little was added to Asellius's discovery: but in 1634, a Veslingius, according to Haller, first saw the lacteals in men, and gave This figure is not very correct; but neither are the figures figure of them. of the skeleton itself, given by the earlier anatomists, more correct: nor have we a right to expect, that a person who sees any thing for the first time, can conceive it, or draw it, as well as more opportunities would have enabled him to do, or as one who comes after him, with the advantage of his knowledge, may be able to do. It appears also, from passages alluded to by IIaller in Veslingius's posthumous works, that he was the first who saw the lymphatics of the liver, though he took them for lacteals. As Bartholin, to whose care these works were intrusted, must have read these passages, first in- Haller thinks it extremely probable, that it was there he received his formation of the lymphatics. " Cum praeterea ad Bartholinum posthuma scripta clari viri pervenerint, et hi ipsi loci a Bartholino editi stint, summe probabile fit hune scriptorem vestigia Veslingii seeutum, ostensam sagaci viro przedam majori felicitate adtigisse." As a farther proof of his abilities, Haller mentions him as the first disco- verer of the thoracic duct, after Eustachius. " Idem Veslingius, nisi plurimum fallor, primus post Eustachium, contra omnes coxtaneos, rectius, anno 1649,vidit vas lacteum grande in pectus adsendere; cum reliqui inci- se- sores, partim ab Asellio persuasi, et partim a lymphaticis vasis liepatis ducti, chyliferos duetus ad hepar ducerent." of VeIn a still later work, his Bibliotheea Anatomica, Haller, speaking cujus slingius's posthumous work, terms it " aureum undique opusculum non licet hie divitias omnes decerpere ," and then adds, " de lacteis vasis ctiam in homine v r plurima experirncnta babel, et anno 1647 duplicem ductum ehylil'erum Vidit." \Vhatever \‘eslingius might have known, it has been latterly understood that Rudbeclt, a Swede, twenty-eight years alter Asellius's discovery of the lacteals, without any previous information on this subject, also discovered the F 2 |