CHYLE. 



359 



base of chyle. Their number, and consequently the opacity 

 of the chyle, are dependent upon the quantity of fatty 

 matter contained in the food. Hence, as a rules, the chyle 

 is whitish and most turbid in carnivorous animals ; less so 

 in Herbivora ; while in birds it is usually transparent. 

 The fatty nature of the molecules is made manifest by 

 their solubility in ether, and, when the ether evaporates, 

 by their being deposited in various-sized drops of oil.* 

 Yet, since they do not run together and form a larger 

 drop, as particles of oil would, it appears very probable 

 that each molecule consists of oil coated over with albu- 

 men, in the manner in which, as Ascherson observed, oil 

 always becomes covered when set free in minute drops in 

 an albuminous solution. And this view is supported by 

 the fact, that when water or dilute acetic acid is added to 

 chyle, many of the molecules are lost sight of, and oil- 

 drops appear in their place, as if the investments of the 

 molecules had been dissolved, and their oily contents had 

 run together. 



Except these molecules, the chyle taken from the villi 

 or from lactoals near them, contains no other solid or 

 organized bodies. The fluid in which the molecules float 

 is albuminous, and does not spontaneously coagulate, 

 though coagulable by the addition of ether. But as the 

 chyle passes on towards the thoracic duct, and especially 

 while it traverses one or more of the mesenteric glands 

 (propelled by forces which have been described with the 

 structure of the vessels), it is elaborated. The quantity of 

 molecules and oily particles gradually diminishes ; cells, to 

 which the name of chyle-corpuscles is given, are developed 

 in it j and by the formation of fibrin, it acquires the pro- 

 perty of coagulating spontaneously. The higher in the 



* Some of the molecules may remain undissolved by the ether ; but 

 this appears to be due to their being defended from the action of the 

 ether by being entangled within the albumen which it coagulates. 



