Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 543

JEAN PECQUET (1622-1674) Experimenta nova anatomica, quibus incognitum hactenus chyli receptaculum, & ab eo per thoracem in ramos usque subclavios vasa lactea deteguntur. Apud Sebastianum Cramoisy et Gabrielem Cramoisy 1651 [12] 108 pp., plate, 5 illus. 20 cm.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was still widely believed that food was converted into blood as it passed through the digestive system. The blood was then carried to the liver where it was imbued with natural spirits and passed on to the heart for distribution throughout the body. Since only the blood vessels were known to the anatomists of that day, it was thought that chyle, the product of digestion, was transported to the liver by the venous system of the intestines. This notion was corrected by Gaspare Aselli (see No. 453) in 1627 when, quite by accident, he discovered the lacteal vessels in the mesentery of a dog. However, he incorrectly surmised that the lacteal vessels empty their contents into the liver. It was not until 1651 that Pecquet reported his discovery of the receptaculum chyli and thoracic duct in the present work. Pecquet, a native of Dieppe, was a graduate of Montpellier and a Paris physician. In the book he accurately described the lacteal veins of Aselli and showed that they terminate in the receptaculum chyli and that the thoracic duct joins the venous systems at the junction of the jugular and subclavian veins. Joannes van Horne (see No. 536) made the same discovery quite independently and corroborated Pecquet's findings in his Novus ductus chyliferus (Leiden, 1652). Only a short time later, Pecquet's work was confirmed and extended to cover the entire lymphatic system by Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) and Thomas Bartholin (see No. 512 ff.). Also included is Pecquet's dissertation on the circulation of the blood and, at the end of the work, supporting letters by the Parisian physicians Jacques Mentel (1597-1671), Pierre de Mercenne (fl. 1650), and the astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, Adrien Auzout (1622-1691). The copperplate engraving clearly depicts the main lymphatic system both in a separate figure and in the dissected abdomen and thorax of a dog.

See Related Record(s): 453 536 512

Cited references: Cushing P191 (Harderwijk ed., 1651); Garrison-Morton 1095; Osler 3639 (Harderwijk ed., 1651); Waller 7278

Gift of John Martin, M.D.