Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/30

 to demonstrate or exhibit what was then proved, and that with the greatest ease. It is difficult to understand how any one can now doubt that the Peyerian glands are really but the pileorrhizae of the roots, the glands the tubera and the thoracic duct the trunk or stem of the absorbent tree.

If any apology be needed for my dwelling so long upon a point of anatomy which has not merely much historical, but also much practical, interest—the Peyerian glands being the part of the organism especially affected by the poison of typhoid fever, which I see has, amongst other aliases, that of 'Peyerian fever' (Walshe, On Diseases of the Heart, 3rd ed. p. 208)—I would add that I was till recently under the impression that the actual demonstration, the doing, of that which my Fig. 1, p. 17, represents as done, might have been a fitting exhibition for me to go through upon the present occasion, following herein the example of Harvey, 'viliora animalia in scenam adducentis.' I have, however, learned that this very demonstration on the appendix vermiformis of the rabbit has been often performed in Germany, and,