Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Joyliffe, George
JOYLIFFE, GEORGE, M.D. (1621–1658), physician, son of John Joyliffe of East Stower, Dorsetshire, was born there in 1621. In 1637, when sixteen years old, he became a member of Wadham College, Oxford, but migrated to Pembroke College, whence he graduated B.A. June 1640, and M.A. April 1643. He served as lieutenant in the royal army under Lord Hopton in 1643. He studied medicine under Dr. Clayton, master of Pembroke College, and regius professor of physic, and in April 1650 entered Clare Hall, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner, became acquainted with Francis Glisson [q. v.], the regius professor of physic, and took the degree of M.D. 1 July 1652. He told Glisson when he called on him to make the necessary arrangements for graduation, that besides arteries, veins, and nerves, a fourth and distinct set of vessels existed, distributed to several parts of the body, and containing a watery humour. He had, he said, made out these vessels in numerous animals and in several parts of the body, and he was sure that the fluid contained in them moved towards the mesentery, and especially towards the beginning of it (Glisson, Anatomia Hepatis, Amsterdam, 1659, ch. xxxi. p. 319). Glisson's statement, first published in 1654, is conclusive evidence as to the originality of Joyliffe's anatomical discovery of the lymph ducts, and was no doubt made then because of the publications of Rudbeck (‘Exercitatio exhibens ductus Hepaticos Aquosos et Vasa Glandularum Serosa,’ Westeräs, 1653) and of Thomas Bartholinus (‘Vasa Lymphatica,’ Copenhagen, 1653), both anatomists who had also dissected out the main lymphatic trunks. Joyliffe was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians 4 April 1653, lectured there on the vasa lymphatica, and was elected a fellow 25 June 1658. His house was on Garlick Hill, London, and there he died 11 Nov. 1658. He did not himself make his discovery known in print.
[Gardiner's Wadham College Register, p. 133; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 280; Wood's Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, iii. 351; Hamey's Bustorum Aliquot Reliquiæ, manuscript at Coll. of Physicians; Philosophical Transactions, 1668; Glisson's Anatomia Hepatis, ed. 1659.]