80 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



principles or proteine compounds may, by slow combustion in 

 the process of respiration, give rise to animal heat, as in car- 

 nivorous animals. If that be the case, it is manifest that the 

 atoms, for example, of albumen cannot, after parting with 

 carbon, remain in any state representative of a proteine com- 

 pound ; or, what is the same thing, that their disintegration 

 must be complete, or such as to deprive them entirely of their 

 organic character. In like manner, if the albumen or fibrine 

 of the muscular tissue be decomposed by the oxygen of the 

 blood into carbonic acid and water, the remainder can no 

 longer represent any form of a plastic or profceine compound; 

 whence it follows that the disintegration of the solids under 

 the actioji of the oxygen of the blood must be complete or a 

 total death, so that the products of that disintegration can no 

 longer possess nutritive properties. 



Thus it appears to be beyond all reasonable doubt that the 

 lymphatic vessels cannot derive nutritive matter from the de- 

 composition of the living solids, and that a proximate principle 

 which has once entered into the composition of a living solid, 

 must pass into the mineral state before its elements can again 

 serve as nourishment to the living body of which it once 

 formed a part. 



There is thus a strong probability that the debris of the 

 solids pass into the blood of the veins, and that the lymphatics 

 merely carry back the superfluous blood-plasma after the nutri- 

 tion of the adjacent solids has been satisfied. 



The blood-plasma is free from the vesicular or corpuscular 

 element. In the lymph, however, there are corpuscles. Whence 

 then are these derived ? To furnish these appears to be the 

 function of the lymphatic glands or lymphatic ganglia (also 

 called conglobate glands), through one or more of which the 

 lymphatic vessels, with hardly an exception, pass before reach- 

 ing the great trunks. These corpuscles, derived from the 



