306 LYMPH. 



are transuded, than correspond with the liquor sanguinis. The 

 circulating blood must therefore be more concentrated. 



On comparing the solid constituents of the lymph and of the 

 serum, we find that the former contains far less albumen than the 

 latter; with every 100 parts of soluble salts there occur in the 

 blood-serum 838, and in the lymph only 697 parts of albumen. 

 This relative deficiency of albumen in the lymph cannot merely 

 depend upon the circumstance that less albumen has originally 

 escaped from the capillaries, but principally on the fact that a 

 portion of it has been applied to the restitution of the textural 

 elements which have become effete, as well as to the formation of 

 the lymph-corpuscles. 



Moreover, we find far less/6^ in the solid residue of the lymph 

 than in that of the blood-serum; Nasse found the ratio of the 

 soluble salts to the ether-extract to be 100 : 1'57 in the lymph, 

 and 100 : 4*8 in the serum. Since it follows from the examination 

 of morbid transudations that they contain very little fat, we might 

 assume that the excess of fat remains in the serum, especially since 

 the venous blood has been found to be richer in fat than the ar- 

 terial ; a part, however, of the transuded fat may be applied to the 

 formation of cells within the lymph, although in Nasse's com- 

 parative analyses, the fibrin and lymph-corpuscles are calculated 

 with the albumen, and hence their fat is included in the analysis of 

 the residue of the lymph; on the other hand, the neutral fats 

 extractable by ether have become in part saponified, and must be 

 sought for in Nasse's alcohol-extract. 



The solid residue of the lymph contains relatively more ex- 

 tractive matters than that of the serum ; if we here also take 100 

 parts of soluble salts as the standard of comparison, the ratio 

 (according to Nasse's analyses) is as 100 : 50'4 in the serum, and 

 as 100 : 87*0 in the lymph. This augmentation of the extractive 

 matters in the lymph seems obviously due to the detritus of the 

 more or less active metamorphosis of the tissues, although a por- 

 tion of this detritus probably transudes from the capillaries even 

 more readily than the soluble salts ; at all events we generally find 

 far more extractive matters in the morbid transudations of the 

 capillaries than in the blood. Hence these matters cannot be 

 regarded merely as the remains of textural metamorphosis, but also 

 of the cell- formation already existing in the blood. There are, 

 however, undoubtedly concealed in the extractive matters a number 

 of substances, whose accurate chemical examination promises to 

 throw much light on the metamorphosis of the animal tissues. 



