Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The anatomy of the thymus gland / by Sir Astley Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![4 2 I resolved, so soon as the work with which I was then oc- cupied was completed, to ascertain the structure that ])ro- duced the secretion, to examine the cavities containing- it, to trace and inject the vessels by which it is carried away, and to learn the nature of the fluid itself, so as to form a prol)a])le conjecture of the use of the Gland in the foetal and infantile life. Perhaps there is no part of the body so difficult of inves- tigation as the Thymus Gland in the human subject. Its small size, the delicacy of its texture, its soft and pnlpy nature which renders it liable to tear under the slightest force, and the numerous small lobes which are combined to form it, all conspire to produce this difficulty, and to render it necessary to call in the aids which injection, hardening, unravelling, and the most careful and repeated dissection can furnish. But still I am quite ready to confess that it would have been scarcely possible to learn the most important parts of the structure of this Gland, by the examination of it, in the human subject alone ; but being aware of its great magnitude in the fcjetal calf, and of the circumstance of its containing a large cpiantity of fluid, I thought its organization would be more easily and certainly ascertained in that animal. I therefore commenced my enquiries in the calf and in the lamb, and soon found the difficulties of the investigation III](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21300367_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
