9O BIOLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS OF PREGNANCY 



grade of decomposition. For further protection, the 

 lymph, with all its complicated arrangements, is inter- 

 posed between the circulation and the cells of the 

 body. Here everything is tested afresh ; and nothing 

 is let loose into the circulation that has not been 

 rendered harmonious with the blood and its plasma. 

 For ourselves, we have scarcely any doubt that the 

 lymph system plays an important part in metabolism, 

 along the lines we have indicated. Sometimes sub- 

 stances are reduced and converted into harmonious 

 material ; sometimes products of a definite type are 

 built up. The lymph is, as we have pointed out 

 before, to be considered as a sort of buffer between 

 the cells of the blood and those of the body ; as a 

 neutral zone, in which evervthinor is assimilated as 



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far as possible. 



If these views are correct, it should be possible 

 to trace such substances as are in harmony with the 

 body, but not with the blood and its plasma, by look- 

 ing for definite ferments. It is quite conceivable 

 that, in certain diseases, the cells only partially effect 

 the decomposition of the nutritive material and of 

 the constituents of the body, and that, to a certain 

 extent, materials that are harmonious only with the 

 cells are handed on to the lymph. The lymph, as 

 already pointed out, would in many cases do its best 

 to correct this failure bv means of its cells, the leuco- 



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