after the experiment. I have myself many times performed this experiment, with the same precaution, and I have uniformly obtained the same results as those of Flandrin. It would occupy too much time to examine all the reasons that have been advanced for and against the absorption of the lymphatics; I shall only relate some experiments I have made myself; but I ought first to observe, that absorption undoubtedly takes place in parts such as the eye, the brain, and the placenta in which the most minute dissection has been unable to discover any lymphatic vessel. _First experiment._--Four ounces of the decoction of rhubarb was given to a dog, in half an hour after he was killed, and it was found that more than half of the liquid had disappeared; the urine evidently contained rhubarb, but the lymph in the thoracic duct exhibited no trace of it. _Second experiment._--A dog swallowed several ounces of alcohol diluted with water; at the end of a quarter of an hour, the blood of the animal had a very distinct odour of alcohol, but there was nothing of the kind in the lymph. Flandrin made a similar experiment on a horse, to whom he gave half a pound of assafetida mixed with an equal quantity of honey. Six hours after, the horse was killed. The odour of the assafetida was very perceptible in the blood of the veins of the stomach, of the small intestines and the cœcum; but it could not be perceived in the lymph. _Third experiment._--A dog was made to swallow six ounces of a solution of Prussiate of Potash in water. In a quarter of an hour, the urine very evidently contained some of the Prussiate; but the lymph taken from the thoracic duct showed no appearance of it. _Fourth experiment._--I gave to a dog, in whom I had tied the thoracic duct, two ounces of a decoction of nux vomica. The effects of absorption were as rapid as if the duct had been open. After the death of the animal I satisfied myself, that the duct had been well tied, and that there was no other branch, as there sometimes is, by which the lymph could get to the subclavian vein. I have varied this experiment by putting the poisonous fluid, into the rectum, the sacs of the pleura and peritoneum. The results have been uniformly the same.