300 LYMPH 



described by J. Muller,* we can in a short time obtain from frogs 

 a very considerable quantity of lymph, \vhich, however, usually 

 contains a slight admixture of blood ; we make a crucial incision 

 through the skin of a frog's thigh, and dissect a portion of skin, 

 above and below, from the subjacent muscles ; from this wound 

 there flows such a quantity of lymph, that if we amputate the 

 thigh, we often obtain more lymph than blood. Fishes usually 

 have tolerably large lymphatics in the lower part of the orbit, and 

 we may readily collect their lymph by opening the orbit from below 

 and then cutting the absorbents. 



The simplest method of obtaining a large quantity of lymph 

 would be by cutting the thoracic duct of animals which had been 

 for a long time deprived of food; but I agree with Nasse in 

 considering this method as unfit for yielding a lymph sufficiently 

 genukie and pure for chemical analysis. 



The chemical constituents are, in general, very similar to those of 

 the blood without red corpuscles. The spontaneously coagulating 

 substance of the lymph is perfectly identical with the fibrin of the 

 blood; like ordinary fibrin, it is converted, by digestion in a 

 solution of nitre, into an albuminous substance coagulable by heat 

 and precipitable by acetic acid. As in the case of the chyle, it is 

 impossible here also to determine its quantity very accurately, 

 since we are unable to separate it completely from cell-formations. 

 Inhuman lymph (obtained in cases of disease or injury), Marchand 

 and Colbergt found 0'52 and L'Heritier 0'32 of fibrin, while in 

 the lymph of the horse from 0'04 to 0*33^ has been found (Reuss 

 and Emmert,t Gmelin, Lassaigne,|| Rees,1f Geiger and Schloss- 

 berger**). J. Miiller found that frogs which had been starved 

 during the winter, yielded a lymph perfectly free from fibrin, while 

 on the other hand, Nasse found that the lymph of frogs which had 

 been kept in a heated room, still coagulated. 



The albumen of the lymph has the same general properties as 

 that of the blood; Geiger and Schlossberger have, however, 

 recorded the singular result that the albumen from the lymph of a 

 horse, although it exhibited no reaction with vegetable colours, 



* Handb. der Physiol. des Menschen. 4 Aufl. Bd, 1, S. 203 [or English 

 translation, 2nd Ed., vol. 1, p. 278]. 

 t Pogg. Ann. Bd. 43, S. 625. 

 $ Allg. Journ. d. Ch. Bd. 3, S. 691. 

 A. Miiller, Diss. inaug. Heidelb. 1819, p. 59. 

 || Recherches physiol. et chimiques etc. Paris, 1825, p. 61. 

 ^ Phil. Mag. Feb. 1841, p. 156. 

 ** Arch. f. phys. Heilk. Bd. 5, S. 392396. 



