(506)
their present Expectations, but have just ground to despair of any future Labours, towards the increase of Practical and Useful knowledge. But he hopes and presages, that the English Nation will lay hold on this opportunity, to deserve the Applause of Mankind for having encouraged and supported a Work, which, instead of barren Terms and Notions, is able to impart to us the Uses of all the Creatures, and to enrich us with all the Benefits of Real Knowledge, true Honour, great Plenty, and solid Delight.
This Disquisition consists of seven Chapters, full of the Learned and Ingenious Author, who was lately elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, his own Experiments and Observations.
In the first he inquires into the Passages, by which the Nourishing Juyce is conveighed into the Womb of the Animal: where he examines the Assertion of Everhard, importing, that some of the Lacteous Vessels carry the said Juyce to the Uterus; which vessels are pretended to have been seen by himself in the dissection of Rabbets. Which engaged our Author to take up again the Anatomical knife and to dissect with all possible accurateness both some of the bigger Animals, as Cows and Mares and some of the smaller kind, as Rabbets, which are instanced by Everhard.
But having spent all his labour and care herein in vain, and besides, evinced by Ligatures, that the pretended Vessels are neither those that are described by Bartholin under the name of Lymphatick, nor others, presumed to be known by Everhard alone, as immediately carrying the Chyle out of its Receptacle to the Womb and Breasts; he imputes the cause of this mistake to the Trunk of the Lymphaticks, running over the Vena cava into the Receptacle near the Emulgents, which Ductus he affirms to have often found filled with Chyle from the Intestinum Rectum, or the Ileum or Cæcum a Dog having no Colon;) but maintains withall, that by Ligatures it is manifest, that that Ductus goes to the Receptacle, and there deposites its liquor; which he proves to be alike true of all the Milky vessels, so that they carry nothing back and consequently are unfit to conveigh any thing to the Womb. This he illustrates by a Noble Experiment of that Learned and Expert Anatomist, Dr. Lower, using to open sometimes the right side of the Thorax,
and
