296 CHYLE. 



find that on pouring an oily, emulsive, watery fluid on a filter, which 

 has been completely saturated with water, oil will penetrate at some 

 spots. The extreme comminution of the fat in the intestinal canal, 

 which is occasionally observed to take place under ordinary relations, 

 through the agency of the bile and the pancreatic juice, is by no means 

 necessary; at all events, Schmidt and Bidder found that in animals 

 into whose intestine pure fat had been conveyed after the exclusion 

 of the bile and pancreatic juice, the lymphatics of the mesen- 

 tery were as completely filled with milky chyle, as they usually 

 appear to be after the use of fatty nutriment, when there is a free 

 access of these glandular secretions. We cannot, therefore, assume 

 the occurrence of an extreme comminution of fat in the aqueous 

 fluid at the surface of the villi ; but as the separate cells of the villi 

 rapidly fill, and soon begin to exchange and blend their contents, 

 the repetition of the experiment made by Lenz can scarcely afford 

 any decisive results; for although the colouring by alcanna may 

 cause the cells to be more conspicuous under the microscope than 

 they would otherwise appear, the cells which were originally filled 

 only with an aqueous fluid would speedily acquire the same hue, 

 in consequence of their being partially permeated by coloured 

 fat. We must, moreover, confess that we are as yet unable to 

 explain, from any known physical facts, the relations of transuda- 

 tion occurring in the cells. We will here merely refer to the 

 rapidity with which the cells are frequently filled with granules 

 of fat in certain pathological conditions, and to the still greater 

 rapidity with which they are emptied processes which have been 

 most carefully studied by Virchow. A dehiscence of the cells may 

 very probably occur only at individual points, and in such a manner, 

 that the cell recovers its original integrity after the discharge of the 

 superfluous substance. But these are all questions for whose 

 further elucidation we must look to future physico-physological 

 inquiries. 



We find more free and much less saponified fat in the small and 

 intermediate lacteals than in the thoracic duct ; and hence we are 

 led to assume that a gradual saponification of the fat takes place 

 in the mesenteric glands, where the chyle is undoubtedly brought 

 in closer contact with the blood ; this process being effected by 

 means of the alkali of the latter fluid. A. portion of the free fat is 

 undoubtedly employed in the cell -formation which then ensues, 

 but we can scarcely hazard a conjecture as to the chemical mode 

 in which those metamorphoses are effected, which the fats them- 

 selves undergo in this process. But as it is certain that more 



