74 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



position that when water or acetic acid is added to chyle, a 

 number of the molecules is lost sight of, owing, as it would 

 seem, to the investments of the molecules being dissolved, so 

 that they are permitted to run together. 



The chyle taken from the villi, or from the lacteals near 

 them, exhibits no other solid bodies but these fatty molecules. 

 The fluid, indeed, in which they float is albuminous ; it does 

 not coagulate spontaneously, yet on the addition of ether a co- 

 agulum forms. The chyle, however, which has been collected 

 near the thoracic duct, after it has passed through one or more 

 of the mesenteric glands, is found to be much elaborated. 

 There is now a smaller proportion of oily molecules ; cells, to 

 which the name of chyle-corpuscles is given, are observed in 

 it ; and apparently, owing to the presence of fibrin e, the fluid 

 coagulates spontaneously on being allowed to rest. The 

 higher the point in the thoracic duct from which the chyle is 

 collected/ the more developed is this new character that is to 

 say, the larger is the proportion of chyle-corpuscles, and the 

 firmer the clot which forms when the fluid is left at rest. This 

 clot is not unlike the clot of coagulated blood without the 

 red corpuscles the chyle-corpuscles are entangled in it, and 

 the fatty particles form a creamy film on the surface of the 

 serum. The chyle clot is, however, soft and moist compared 

 with the blood clot. It resembles the blood in this respect, 

 that, within the lacteal vessels, or the thoracic duct, it may 

 remain a long time uncoagulated, like the blood in the blood- 

 vessels, but that when drawn off it quickly concretes. The 

 presence of fibrine in this elaborated chyle can hardly be 

 doubted, while the increase of this proximate principle appears 

 to take place in the like proportion with the multiplication of 

 the chyle-corpuscles. Like the chyle- corpuscles the fibrine is 

 not absorbed as such from the chyme, there being no fibrine in 

 the chyle of the villi, but it appears to be gradually elaborated 



