290 ABSORPTION. 



like the liquor sanguinis, diluted, but gradually becoming 

 more concentrated ; and their corpuscles being in process of 

 development into red blood-corpuscles. Thus, in quality, the 

 lymph and chyle are adapted to replenish the blood ; and their 

 quantity, so far as it can be estimated, appears ample for this 

 purpose. In one of Mageudie's experiments, half an ounce of 

 chyle was collected in five minutes from the thoracic duct of a 

 middle-sized dog ; Collard de Martigny obtained nine grains of 

 lymph, in ten minutes, from the thoracic duct of a rabbit which 

 had taken no food for twenty-four hours ; and Gieger, from 

 three to five pounds of lymph daily from the foot of a horse, 

 from whom the same quantity had been flowing several years 

 without injury to health. Bidder found, on opening the tho- 

 racic duct in cats, immediately after death, that the mingled 

 lymph and chyle continued to flow from one to six minutes ; 

 and, from the quantity thus obtained, he estimated that if the 

 contents of the thoracic duct continued to move at the same 

 rate, the quantity which would pass into a cat's blood in twenty- 

 four hours would be equal to about one-sixth of the weight of 

 the whole body. And, since the estimated weight of the blood 

 in cats is to the weight of their bodies as 1.7, the quantity of 

 lymph daily traversing the thoracic duct would appear to be 

 about equal to the quantity of blood at any time contained in 

 the animals. Schmidt's observations on foals have yielded 

 very similar results. By another series of experiments, Bidder 

 estimated that the quantity of lymph traversing the thoracic 

 duct of a dog in twenty-four hours is about equal to two-thirds 

 of the blood in the body. If we take these estimates, it will 

 not follow from them that the whole of an animal's blood is 

 daily replaced by the development of lymph and chyle; for 

 even if the quantity of lymph and chyle daily formed be equal 

 to that of the blood, the solid contents of the blood will be 

 much too great to be replaced by those of the lymph and chyle. 

 According to Nasse's analyses, the solid matter of a given 

 quantity of blood could not be replaced out of less than three 

 or four times the quantity of lymph and chyle. 



Absorption by the Lacteal Vessels. 



During the passage of the chyme along the whole tract of 

 the intestinal canal, its completely digested parts are absorbed 

 by the bloodvessels and lacteals distributed in the mucous 

 membrane. The bloodvessels appear to absorb chiefly the 

 dissolve^ portions of the fqod, and these, including especially 

 the albuminous and saccharine, they imbibe without choice ; 

 whateyer can mix with the blood passes into the vessels, as 



