390 OF THE MILK. 



covers the same elements as the milk of other animals. 

 Besides the aqueous halitus which it gives off when 

 fresh and warm, the serum, separating from the caseous 

 part, contains sugar of milk* and acetic acid mixed 

 with phosphate of lime and of magnesia and with oil 

 and mucus. The butyraceous cream is said to con- 

 sist of globules of various and inconstant size, their 

 diameter ranging between ^L* and - 6 %- of a line.f(A) 



619. The analogy between chyle and blood, and be- 

 tween both these fluids and milk,^: renders it probable 

 that the milk is a kind of reproduced chyle, again sepa- 

 rated from the blood before its complete assimilation. 

 This idea is strengthened by the frequent existence in 

 the milk of the particular qualities of food previously 

 taken,§ and by the chylous appearance of the watery 

 milk secreted during pregnancy and immediately alter 

 labour. || 

 



* Marc. L. Williamoz, De sale lactis essentiali. LB. 1756. 4to. 



t Senac, Tr. da cvntr. Vol. ii. p. 276. ed. 2. 



Pr. v. P. Gruithuiscn, Untersuch. uber den Untersc hied zwischen Eiter und 

 Schleim durch das Microscop. Munich. 1809. 4to. p. 16. fig. 15. 



+ Compare J. Theod. Van de Kasteclc, Diss, de analogia inter lac et san- 

 gtiinem. LB. 1780. 4to. and Alex. Wilson on the analogy between milk and 

 chyle, Observations relative to the influence of the climate, p. 97 sqq. 



§ v. Among a host of witnesses, Kolpin in Pallas's Neur/i nordischen Bey- 

 'triifren. Vol. ii. p. 343. 



I| Many circumstances induce me to believe that the lymph of the absorbents 

 is of much importance in the secretion of milk. 



For instance, the swelling of the snbaxillary glands almost always observable 

 during the first months of pregnancy. 



P»Ht especially the remarkable fact, — that in advanced pregnancy, when, from 

 the womb compressing on account of its size the large and numerous lumbar 

 fh-Mises of lymphatics, the legs have swollen, this cedematous tumour so com- 

 pletely disappears immediately after labour that the calves of the lcirs hang 

 iduiost flaccid from the lymph finding no impediment in the lumbar plexuses 



