Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Lymph

LYMPH, a tasteless transparent liquid, that is absorbed from the surface; the cellular texture; as well as the viscera and their cavities throughout the animal body: it is conveyed into the thoracic duct, or canal of the breast, by means of certain vessels, thence called lymphatics, or lympheducts.—The use of this organization is to return to the thoracic duct the superfluous nourishing fluid; the vapours of vascular cavities, and likewise all substances that are applied to the skin; from which circumstance some physiologists have conjectured the lymph to be the immediate matter of nutrition.