LACTEALS AND LYMPHATICS, 401 



it into the rectum through a tube with a funnel attached, and allowing the food 

 to pass in slowly by its own weight. The patient must endeavour to retain the 

 enema as long as possible. When the fluid is slowly and gradually introduced, it 

 may pass above the ileo-csecal valve. 



Solutions of grape-sugar, and perhaps a small amount of soap solution, are 

 useful; and amongst nitrogenous substances the commercial flesh, bread, or milk 

 peptones of Sanders-Ezn, Adauikiewicz, in Germany, and Darby's fluid meat in 

 this country, are to be recommended. The amount of peptone required is I'll 

 grms. per kilo, of body- weight (Catillon); less useful are butter-milk, egg-albumin 

 with common salt. Leube uses a mixture of 150 grms. flesh, with 50 grms. 

 pancreas and 100 grms. water, which he injects into the rectum where the proteids 

 are peptonised and absorbed. The method of nutrient enemata only permits 

 imperfect nutrition, and at most only \ of the proteids necessary for maintaining 

 the metabolism of the body is absorbed (v. Voit, Bauer). 



195. Chyle-Vessels and Lymphatics. 



Within the tissues of the body, and even in those tissues which do 

 not contain blood-vessels e.g., the cornea, or in those which contain 

 few blood-vessels, there exists a system of vessels or channels which 

 contain the juices of the tissues, and within these vessels the fluid 

 always moves in a centripetal direction. These canals arise within 

 the tissues in a variety of ways, and unite in their course to form 

 delicate and afterwards thicker tubes, which ultimately terminate in 

 two large trunks which open at the junction of the jugular and sub- 

 clavian veins ; that on the left side is the thoracic duct, and that on 

 the right, the right lymphatic trunk. 



Lymphatics. With regard to the lymph and its movements in 

 different organs, it is to be noticed that this occurs in different ways 

 in different places. (1) In many tissues, the lymphatics represent the 

 nutrient channels, by which the fluid which transudes through the 

 neighbouring vessels is distributed, as in the cornea and in many 

 connective tissues. (2) In many tissues, as in glands e.g., the sali- 

 vary glands (Gianuzzi) and the testis, the lymph-spaces are the first 

 reservoirs for fluid, from which the cells during the act of secretion 

 derive the fluid necessary for that process. (3) The lymphatics have 

 the general function of collecting the fluid which saturates the tissues, 

 and carrying it back again to the blood. The capillary blood-system 

 may be regarded as an irrigation system, which supplies the tissues with 

 nutrient fluids, Avhile the lymphatic system may be regarded as a 

 drainage apparatus, which conducts away the fluids that have trans- 

 uded through the capillary walls. Some of the decomposition pro- 

 ducts of the tissues, proofs of their retrogressive metabolism, become 

 mixed with the lymph-stream, so that the lymphatics are at the same 

 time absorbing vessels. Substances introduced into the parenchyma of 



the tissues in other ways, e.g., by subcutaneous injection, are partly 



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