CARPENTER, ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. 289 
108. In regard to the degree in which the function of nutritive 
absorption is performed by the lacteals and by the sanguiferous 
system respectively, considerable difference of opinion has prevailed. 
When the absorbent vessels were first discovered, and their functional 
importance was perceived, it was imagined that the introduction of 
alimentary fluid into the vascular system took place by them alone. 
Such an idea, however, would be altogether inconsistent with the facts 
of Comparative Anatomy ;* and it is completely negatived by the 
results of experiment. For that absorption is effected to a very 
considerable amount by the agency of the blood-vessels, is shown in 
the first place, by the readiness with which aqueous fluids and even 
alcohol are taken-up from the parietes of the stomach, and are carried 
into the general circulation. Thus in a case of extroversion of the 
bladder, observed by Mr. Erichsen,} in which the urinary secretion 
could be collected immediately on its passing from the kidney, 
when a solution of ferrocyanide of potassium was taken into 
the stomach, this salt was detected in the urine in one instance 
within 1 minute, and in three other instances within 2} minutes. 
In all these cases, however, the stomach may be presumed to have 
been empty, and the vascular system in a state of aptitude for absorp- 
tion ; since the experiments were made either after a long fast, or at 
least four hours after a light meal. When, on the other hand, the 
salt was introduced into the stomach soon after the ingestion of 
alimentary substances, a much longer period elapsed before it could 
be detected in the urine; thus, when a substantial meal had been 
taken two hours previously, the interval was 12 minutes; when tea 
and bread-and-butter had been taken one hour previously, the interval 
was 14 minutes: a similar meal having been taken twenty-four minutes 
previously, the interval was 16 minutes; when only two minutes had 
passed since the conclusion of such a meal, the interval was 27 
minutes; and when a solid meal had been concluded just before the 
introduction of the salt, the interval was 39 minutes. These facts are 
of great importance, in showing the very marked influence which the 
state of the stomach exercises upon the absorption of matters intro- 
duced into it. Notless important, however, is the state of the vaseular 
system in regard to turgescence or emptiness; for it was found by 
Magendie, that when he had injected a considerable quantity of water 
into the veins of a dog, poison was absorbed very slowly ; whilst, if he 
relieved the distension by bleeding, there was speedy evidence of its 
entrance into the circulation. The rapidity with which not only 
aqueous but alcoholic liquids introduced into the stomach may pass 
into the general circulation, has been shown by the experiments of 
Dr. Percy ;{ who found that when strong alcohol was injected into 
the stomach of dogs, the animals would sometimes fall sensible to 
the ground immediately upon the completion of the injection, their 
terminating with a smooth circular] margin. They described the columnar 
arrangement as broadest and most distinct in fasting animals, whilst in cells 
filled with fat it diminishes to one half or one third of its former breadth, and 
the strie disappear, so that only a bright narrow rim or border is left. Lastly, 
Wiegandt is stated in ‘ Canstatt’s Jahresbericht ’ for 1862, p. 32, to view the 
cilia as merely the optical expression of striz or wrinkles. 
* See ‘ Princ. of Comp. Phys.,’ chap. iv. 
+ ‘Medical Gazette,’ vol. xxxvi, p. 363. 
+ ‘Experimental Enquiry concerning the Presence of Alcohol in the Ventricles 
of the Brain,’ p. 61. 
