ABSORPTION. 265 



After it had been anatomically proved that the lymphatics and 

 lacteals only communicate with the blood-vessels through the 

 thoracic duct, the following experiments were instituted. The 

 lymphatics or the thoracic duct having been tied, a substance was 

 introduced into the intestine or into a loop of gut, which could 

 either be easily detected chemically in the blood, or whose passage 

 into the blood might be recognised by certain phenomena of 

 poisoning. Experiments of this nature were undertaken by 

 Magendie,* Brodie,f Westrumb,J Emmert, Segalas,|| Mayer,^]" 

 Bischoff,** v. Dusch,tt Kurschner^J and others, the principal 

 object being to determine as far as possible the capacity of the 

 blood-vessels for resorption. Another method employed to prove 

 the transition of certain substances into the blood without passing 

 into the lymphatics, consisted in examining the blood and the 

 chyle a short time after certain substances had been introduced 

 into the intestinal canal of an animal. Tt was shown that many of 

 the matters which will subsequently be enumerated, might be 

 found in the blood, but not in the chyle. Experiments of this kind 

 were made by Flandrin, Tiedemann and Gmelin,|||| Mayer,lffl 

 and more recently by Bernard ;*** the latter observer, moreover, 

 essentially improved this method, by seeking in the blood of the 

 portal, vein for substances which had been introduced into the 

 intestinal canal. As the lacteals convey the fluids which they 

 contain with comparative slowness, it must be assumed that those 

 substances which reappear very rapidly in the blood and in the 

 excretions must be resorbed through the intestinal capillaries, and 

 not previously through the lacteals. We may therefore, according 

 to Westrumb, Stehberger, and others, recognise matters which 

 are resorbable through the blood-vessels, by the extreme rapidity 



* Precis de Physiologie. T. 2, pp. 203 et 279. 



t Philos. Trans, for 1811, p. 178. 



J Physiol. Untersuclmngen iiber die Einsaugungskraft dcr Venen. Han- 

 nover, 1825 ; and Meckel's Arch. Bd. 7, S. 525 u. 540. 



Meckel's Arch. Bd. 1, S. 178. 



II Magendie's Journal de Physiologie. T. 2, p. 117. 



II Meckel's Arch. Bd. 3, S. 485. 



** Zeitsch. f. rat. Med. Bd. 4, S. 62-71, und Bd. 5, S. 293-305. 



ft Ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 360-374. 



JI Handworterbuch der Physiologie. Bd. 1, S. 48. 



Magendie's Journal de Physiologie. T. 13, p. 65. 



|| || Versuche iiber d. Wege, auf welchen Substanzen aus dem Magen und 

 Darmcanal ins Blut gelangen. Heidelberg, 1820. 



!fl[ Op. cit. 



*** L'Union med. T. 3, pp. 445, 457 et 461. 



