He studied medicine under Thomas Clayton, Master of Pembroke College, and Regius Professor of Physic, and in April 1650 entered Clare Hall, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner, became acquainted with Francis Glisson, the Regius Professor of Physic, and took the degree of MD on 1 July 1652.
[2] Joyliffe told Glisson when he called on him to make the necessary arrangements for graduation, that besides arteries, veins, and nerves, a fourth and distinct set of vessels existed, distributed to several parts of the body, and containing a watery humour.
He had, he said, made out these vessels in numerous animals and in several parts of the body, and he was sure that the fluid contained in them moved towards the mesentery, and especially towards the beginning of it.
[3] Glisson's statement, first published in 1654, is conclusive evidence as to the originality of Joyliffe's anatomical discovery of the lymph ducts, and was no doubt made then because of the publications of Rudbeck (Exercitatio exhibens ductus Hepaticos Aquosos et Vasa Glandularum Serosa, Westeräs, 1653) and of Thomas Bartholinus (Vasa Lymphatica, Copenhagen, 1653), both anatomists who had also dissected out the main lymphatic trunks.
[2] Joyliffe was admitted a Candidate of the College of Physicians on 4 April 1653, lectured there on the vasa lymphatica, and was elected a Fellow on 25 June 1658.