222 Analysis of the Chyle of the Horse. [Sept. 



Chyle, No. 2. — Physical State. 



This portion of chyle was white and opake, like milk. It 

 contained a coagulum equally white and opake. 



After having separated the liquid portion from the coagulum, 

 I washed the latter, and set it aside. The reader will find an 

 account of its properties hereafter. 



The Liquid Portion. 



This portion, drawn from the sublumbar branches, presented 

 the same properties as the liquid from the red portion of chyle 

 excepting as to colour. It was coagulated by heat, by acids, by 

 alcohol; the pm*pitates were redissolved by the alkalies, and the 

 solution remained milk}', like the solution of the precipitate 

 from the coloured portion of the same chyle 



The portion of white chyle treated with boiling alcohol was 

 entirely coagulated, as I have mentioned above; but the alcohol 

 retains in solution a small quantity of matter, a part of which it 

 deposits, on cooling, in the form of flocks; but a portion re- 

 mains in solution, as is shown by the addition of water, which 

 renders the alcohol milky. 



Though I have been able to procure only a quantity of this 

 matter insufficient to ascertain its nature exactly, yet I think 

 myself entitled to conclude that it is a species of fat, the insolu- 

 bility of which in the alkalies shows it to be analogous to what I 

 found in the matter of the brain. 



It is, without doubt, this fatty matter which, by its presence, 

 prevents the albumen, in separating from the coagulum, from 

 becoming transparent, like that of blood. It likewise occasions 

 the albumen precipitated by alcohol to remain opake after desic- 

 cation. It dissolves in boiling alcohol, and is deposited as the 

 alcohol cools, and it gives the alcohol the property of becoming 

 milky when mixed with water. 



As to the matter coagulable by heat, acids, alcohol, &c. there 

 can be no doubt, I think, that it is albumen. It forms the 

 greatest part of the chyle. 



Thus the liquid parts of the two portions of chyle, Nos. I and 

 2, are of the same nature, if we except the red colour, which 

 does not exist in the chyle of the sublumbar branches, though 

 that chyle contains the materials proper to produce it. 



Examination of the Coa'eulum formed spontaneously in the co- 

 loured Portion of Chyle, iVo. 1. 



To obtain the substance which had produced the spontaneous 

 coao-ulation of that portion of chyle, I washed the mass with 

 water, in the same manner as is done with the coagulum of 

 blood when wc want to obtain the fibrin. 



