614 LETTERS.
thoracic ducts. 1 Not, indeed, that I was certain of the opinion then delivered, but that I might place these objections such as they were before those who fancy that when they have made a certain progress in discovery all is revealed by them.
With reference to your letters in reply, however, and in so far as the collection* of milky fluid in the vessels of Aselli is concerned, I have not ascribed it to accident, and as if there were not certain assignable causes for its existence ; but I have denied that it was found at all times in all animals, as the constant tenor of nutrition would seem to require. Nor is it requisite that a matter, already thin and much diluted, and which is to become fat after the ulterior concoction, should concrete in the dead animal. The instance of pus, I have adduced only incidentally and collaterally. The hinge upon which our whole discussion turns is the assumption that the fluid contained in the lacteal vessels of Aselli is chyle. This position I certainly do not think you demonstrate satisfactorily, when you say that chyle must be educed from the intestines, and that it can by no means be carried off by the arteries, veins, or nerves ; and thence conclude that this function must be performed by the lacteals. I, however, can see no reason wherefore the innumerable veins which traverse the intestines at every point, and return to the heart the blood which they have received from the arteries, should not, at the same time, also suck up the chyle which penetrates the parts, and so transmit it to the heart ; and this the rather, as it seems pro- bable that some chyle passes immediately from the stomach before its contents have escaped into the intestines, (or how account for the rapid recovery of the spirits afrd strength in cases of fainting ?) although no lacteals are distributed to the stomach. With regard to the letter which you inform me you have addressed to Bartholin, I do not doubt of his replying to you as you desire ; nor is there any occasion wherefore I should trouble you farther on that topic. I only say (keeping silence as to any other channels), that the nutritive juice might, be as readily transported by fche uterine arteries, and distilled into the uterus, as watery fluid is carried by the emulgent arteries
1 [Pecquet described the duct as dividing into two branches, one for each sub- clavian vein. ED.]
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