ABSORPTION AND THK ROUTES OF FOOD. 



357 



leading to the central lacteal. The droplets of fat are 

 pushed in some inexplicable way through the epithelium 

 cells towards the central lacteal. Possibly the epithelium 

 cells pick up these droplets of fat much as the amoeba picks 

 up its food. 



Additional factors in fat absorption are the white cor- 

 puscles, so plentifully distributed in the wall of the intes- 

 tine. It is believed (and there is fairly good histological 

 evidence for this belief) that the corpuscles wander in be- 

 tween the epithelium cells, ingest particles of fat like an 

 amoeba, and then wander back through the interstices of 

 the tissue and drop their load of fat into the central lacteal, 

 accomplishing this by disintegrating themselves and so lib- 



Fig. 126. SECTION- OF A FROG'S INTESTINE TREATED WITH OSMIC ACID TO SHOW AB- 

 SORPTION OF FAT. (After Schafer.) 

 I, lacteal; c, white corpuscles with contained fat granules; ep, intestinal epithelium; 



Kt>\ its striated border. The fat granules become smaller and smaller as they approach 



the lacteal. 



crating their contained fat. On sections of the villi one 

 may frequently see these white corpuscles with contained 

 fat droplets in all positions ranging from between the epi- 

 thelium cells to the central lacteal. 



But all the fat suffers a peculiar change in its passage 

 into the lacteal. In the intestine it was in the form of drop- 

 lets. In the lacteal it is in the form of small particles as 

 fine as the finest dust. But not only this mechanical change 

 has occurred; there has been a chemical one. In the lac- 

 teal the fat is not present as butter, or lard, or tallow, 

 forms in which it was taken in the food, but has been 



