ITS CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS. 289 



in the chyle must vary with the nature of the food that has been 

 taken, but these relations, as we have already observed, do not at 

 present admit of being determined. Except during the period 

 of digestion, the chyle contains few cells and in almost all respects 

 resembles the lymph. 



The quantity of fibrin in human chyle has not been determined; 

 but attempts have frequently been made to ascertain the amount 

 of this substance in different animals, and especially in horses, 

 although this has seldom been accomplished without an admixture 

 of corpuscles and fat. In the chyle of the horse Tiedemann 

 and Gmelin* found from 0'19 to 07, and Simon,t from 0'09 to 

 0'44-g-; I found a coagulum which was very rich in cells amount 

 to 0'495, while the fibrin, as free from cells as possible, deter- 

 mined from the same chyle, amounted to 0'301-. Tiedemann 

 and Gmelin found from 0'17 to 0-2 7-g- in the dog, and from 0'24 

 to 0-82^ in the sheep ; Rees found 0'37 in the ass, and Nasse, 

 0-13 in the cat. 



Tiedemann and Gmelin found from 1*93 to 4*34 of albumen in 

 the chyle of horses, and I found 3*464 as the mean of several 

 analyses in the chyle of horses fed upon bran, and 3*064# in that 

 of horses fed on starch. 



Tiedemann and Gmelin found 1'64 of fat in the chyle of 

 horses, Simon from I'OOl to 3'480, while I found from 0'563 to 

 1-891; Rees found 3'60l# in the chyle of the ass, and Nasse 

 3 -2 7^ in that of the cat. 



Simon found from 8'874 to 9*892-^ of extractive matters free 

 from salts in the solid residue of the chyle of horses, while I 

 found 7'273-g- in that of horses, when fed upon bran, and 8*345 

 when fed upon starch. 



The chyle of horses contained, according to Simon, from 6*7 to 

 7'3^ of soluble salts, (determined from the ash,) while according 

 to my own researches, it yielded 7'45-g- when the animals were fed 

 upon bran, and 6'784 when they were fed upon starch. The 

 chyle of the cat contained, according to Nasse, 9*4^ of soluble 

 salts, of which 7*1 was chloride of sodium. 



The chyle contains about 2-g- of insoluble salts. The mineral 

 constituents of the solid residue of the chyle amount, therefore, on 

 an average to 12-g-, of which from 9 to 10 are soluble salts. 



Numerous observations have been made on the influence which 

 the nature of the food exercises on the constitution of the chyle, 



* Verdauung nach Versuchen. Bd. 2, S. 75. 



f Med. Chem. Bd. 2, S. 241-244 [or English translation, vol. i. pp.354-359]. 

 VOL. II. u 



