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Show 13" INTRODUCTION TO PART II. Previous to the description of the vessels, I have thought proper to de- scribe the number and situation of the glands of the absorbents, as they are more easily discovered. By this means I shall give an outline of the system, which will facilitate afterwards the description of the vessels them- selves. Many of these glands, from their bulk, may be discovered under the intcguments, both by the eye and by the touch. \Vhen they are swelled or indurated, they are still more easily discovered; and in the dead body, dissection, with the utmost facility, discovers them in all the other parts where they exist. Both in the description of the glands and of the vessels, I shall begin at the greatest distance from the terminations of the system, A DIZSCI{IPTI(DN OF THE SITUATION AND NUMBER OF THE GLANDS or THE ABSORBENTS. i. e. the angles of the jugular and subclavian veins; and follow the course of the absorbed {luids moving in their vessels: consequently, I begin with the lower extremity. I have quoted Haller very often, not only because I THE POPLITEAL GLANDS. consider him as the best anatomical author, on the whole, that we have, -rwrlillllfll' but also because I find the anatomical knowledge of all his predecessors collected in his writings. He does not appear to have done much in this system himself; but he knows almost every thing that has been done by his predecessors and cotemporaries. I HAVE not seen any glands in the lower extremity, below the ham. Hallcr makes a similar observation: " Sensim rariores factte in poplite fcre desinunt, cum in tibia, fibula, pedeque nullae mihi unquam occurrerint." -Mr. Hewson describes and delineates one very small gland a little below the middle of the tibia, on the fore part of that bone, between it and the external integumcnts; but I have never once met with it; and would therefore consider it as a kind of lusus natures. Dr. Hunter once found the glands even of the ham wanting. This circumstance also I never met with. There are seldom more than three; they lie close upon the popliteal artery; and, though small, are by no means, as Haller says, " uti ultimae conglobatarum, ita minimize." There are many on the mesocolon, and in a variety of other places, much smaller than they are. They swell from sores on the outside of the foot, in the sole of the foot, and from sores of A DESCRIP- " " ""‘H'NWHM dw-t-vnp-yvarraew-mqr»mewr -- __ the integuments on the calf of the leg. Dr. Hunter mentioned a case ofa patient who was bit by a mad dog in the calf of the leg: the sore healed at first, but some weeks after broke out again; red lines were perceived running upward from the sore, with the saphena minor, which dipt down in the ham, and were lost. They were inflamed lymphatics going to those glands. The |