General

I have described the behaviour of the lymph vessels of the dog’s skin in a special article in the Anatomischer Anzeiger, Vol. 50, 1917; in the following section, therefore, only the more important results will be described, and reference to the published article is recommended for further details. My investigations into the general behaviour of the skin lymph vessels have shown that:

1. Several (2 to 4) lymph vessels can fill up from one puncture site;

2. Skin lymph vessels in dogs can cross the median plane and open into lymph nodes on the other side of the body (this applies mainly to lymph vessels from the median areas of the skin);

3. In dogs, as in other species, the skin can be divided into defined areas according to the specific lymph nodes that drain those areas.

Lymph vessels on the borders between individual areas will very often drain to the lymph nodes for both areas (for example, in Figure 13, this is demonstrated by the lymph vessels of the skin of the lateral and ventral thoracic wall). In dogs, the lymph vessels of the skin form coarse networks as they travel to and from the lymph nodes (also shown in Figure 13) to a much greater extent than that of the cow. There is limited information regarding the behaviour of the cutaneous lymph vessels in relation to the cutaneous blood vessels. It is, however, certain that the statement made in most textbooks, that the skin lymph vessels usually accompany the larger skin veins, does not apply to the dog, as can be seen in Figure 13. However, the statement that some of the lymph vessels do run with the larger skin veins is certainly correct.