FUNCTIONS OF THE INTESTINES. 



325 



paired through loss of part of their pabulum energeticum in the 

 blood, the asepticizing secretion of the crypts of Lieberkiihn 

 and the glands of Brunner became reduced, the production of 

 lymphocytes by the follicles likewise, while the reduction of 

 oxidizing substance in the secretions per se contributed to fur- 

 ther impair their prophylactic qualities. Onuf and Collins also 

 refer to one of their animals operated in the same way, in 

 which diarrhoea developed in two weeks; the third week "the 

 animal began to be uncertain in gait, which increased to well- 

 marked staggering" . . . "within two days it died in col- 

 lapse." That these phenomena are of suprarenal origin needs 

 hardly to be emphasized. 



The following deductions seem to us to be warranted by 

 the analysis submitted: 



The glands of Lieberkuhn and the duodenal glands of Brun- 

 ner supply a secretion the purpose of which is to asepticize the 

 intestinal contents. 



The villi, through their venules and lacteals, absorb nutrient 

 and chyle-forming materials from the intestinal foodstuffs, and 

 the contents of the lacteals are submitted to a further asepticizing 

 process, mainly in Kolliker's cytogenic membrane. 



The solitary and agminated lymph-follicles (Peyer's patches) 

 are cytogenic structures which further asepticize the materials ab- 

 sorbed by the surrounding villi, the efferent lymph-vessels of the 

 latter constituting the afferent lymph-vessels of the follicles, where 

 .both kinds of organs occur together: i.e., in the portion of the small 

 intestine in which pullulation of pathogenic bacteria is most likely 

 to occur, the ileum particularly. 



The solitary and agminated lymph- follicles also supply leu- 

 cocytes to the intestinal cavity, which leucocytes are formed in 

 their cytogenic area (Flemming's central nodule) and pass out 

 through the fenestrated membrane overlying each follicle. The 

 purpose of some of these leucocytes is to insure the destruction of 

 pathogenic bacteria formed as a result of putrefaction of the in- 

 testinal contents or introduced into the intestine. 



The ccecum, being particularly exposed to the accumulation of 

 putrefactive materials, is supplied with an organ in which agmin- 

 ated lymph-follicles are particularly numerous: i.e., the vermiform 

 appendix. The functions of this organ, therefore, appear to be to 



