QTJAOTTTY OF LYMPH. 511 



again, reasoning from experiments made upon dogs eighteen 

 hours after feeding, when the fluid which passes up the tho- 

 racic duct may be assumed to be pure unmixed lymph, the 

 total quantity of lymph alone, produced in the twenty-four 

 hours by a man of ordinary weight, would be between three 

 and a half and four pounds (3-864: Ib.). 1 These estimates can 

 only be accepted as approximative ; and they do not indicate 

 the entire quantity of lymph actually contained in the or- 

 ganism. 



There are no very late researches with regard to the va- 

 riations in the quantity of lymph. Collard de Martigny 

 made a series of elaborate investigations a number of years 

 ago, with regard to the effects of starvation upon the consti- 

 tution and the quantity of the lymph. He found the lym- 

 phatics always distended with fluid in dogs killed after two 

 days of total deprivation of food. This condition continued 

 during the first week of starvation ; but after that time, the 

 quantity in the vessels gradually diminished, and a few hours 

 before death, the lymphatics and the thora,cic duct were nearly 

 empty. In comparing the quantity of fluid in the lymphat- 

 ics of the neck during digestion and absorption, with the 

 quantity which they contained soon after digestion was com- 

 pleted, the same observer found that while digestion and 

 absorption were going on actively, the vessels of the neck 

 contained scarcely any fluid ; but the quantity gradually in- 

 creased after these processes were completed." 



Properties and Composition of Lymph. Lymph taken 

 from the vessels in various parts of the system, or the fluid 

 which is discharged from the thoracic duct during the inter- 

 vals of digestion, is either perfectly transparent and color- 



1 DALTON, Treatise on Human Physiology, Philadelphia, 1864, p. 322. 



2 COLLARD DE MARTIGNY, Recherches Experimentales sur les Effete de I 1 Absti- 

 nence Complete d'Alimens solides et liquides sur la Composition et la Quantite 

 du Sang et de la Lymphe. Journal de Physiologie, Paris, 1828, tome viii., p. 

 174 et scg. 



