| Description | Dr Needham made an experiment on a dog to show that 'the Lymphaticks of the Liver do in the extremity of their tranks inosculate with the 'pori Bilarij', which he thought could not be said of any two distinct sorts of Vessels that cary distinct sorts of Liquors in them, throughout the whole body. The experiment was, that the injections of milk and water made into the pori bilarij did not onely fill the vena cava, bu the Lympheducts also, without mixing it with the bloud.
Dr Needham also said that 'he would have made another Experiment upon this dog if he had been duly fed, which should show that the Chyle possesseth not onely all the Mesaraicks, but all the other Lympheducts and Glands upon the Iliaque vessels and under the Cava; and not onely so, but that the whold masse of suet that is upont eh Loyne in likewise filled with it, in which place, he added, it seemed to be all extravasaed, and gathered up again afterward into the Vessels, to be conveyed to the Receptaculum. Of which extravasation he mentioned this observable effect, that the fat of the Loins differs in seveal Animals according to the difference of the Milk and the chyle: where they are full of butter and otherwise grosse, this fat is thick and solid; as in the suet of Beivers, Sheep, Goats: But where they are thinne the fat is soft and greasy, as may be seen in the Leafe of a swine, in Dogs, Horse, Men etc.'
Mr Needham then read his discourse 'De Sera Sanguinis wherein he treated of this Serum as the effectual cause of Concoction, and as the Material cause of Nourishment in all the parts of the body: intimating withal, that the next thing to be attempted was, to explain the Manner of this conversion into the Nutriment of the parts; and the manner of the separating Experiments, as also the several degeneracies of it in morbid cases.'
The Society thanked him and asked him to pursue his work, and to leave this discourse with the Secretary for registering. Which he did, but asked if he could then have it again to review it before it was entered. He also left eighteen glasses with Mr Hook for the Repository, conataining phlegm, spirits, salts and oils of the Sercem and grumus, of the blood, as he had analysed them himself.
Mr Oldenburg read a letter from 'Monsieur Hugens de Zulichem Senior, dated at the Hague 16/20 November 1675 and accompanied with a little book in octavo, made in Lower dutch by one Hermanus Busschof touching the gout, and by the author of the letter presented to the Society, containing a new way of curing the Gout by a factitious Substance called Moxa, prepared out of a dried herb, not named in the book; but the prepared stuff said to be had at Utrecht at the house of the brother of Busschof '.
Mr Oldenburg was asked to thank Monsieur de Zulichem and to endeavour to get some of the medicine; also to get the book translated into English with all s[peed, and to give the Society at their next meeting an account of it. |