CHAP. XXVI.] CONTENTS OF THE ABSORBENTS. 281 



find in it red blood-corpuscles. These, it is probable, have been 

 accidentally introduced into the lymphatic vessel, during the dis- 

 section employed to lay it open. 



Chyle. The liquor chyli contains more albumen, and more fat 

 than the liquor lymphse. It has been noticed that the lacteals 

 near the intestine, contain little or no fibrine; their contents do not 

 acquire the power of spontaneously coagulating till we approach 

 the main trunks. Even in the receptaculum chyli, and the thoracic 

 duct, where the chyle is commingled with the lymph from distant 

 parts, the clot formed is still much softer than that of blood. 



The corpuscles of the chyle are the same as those of lymph. In 

 addition, however, we have in most instances the molecular base* 

 This varies with the amount of fatty matter in the food. It gives 

 the chyle that milky colour which was shewn by Tiedemann and 

 Gmelin to have a close correspondence with the fat of the food. 

 It has been noticed to be generally absent or very deficient in 

 birds ; it is less abundant in herbivorous animals than in carni- 

 vorous.. If a dog be fed on food, from which fat is carefully 

 excluded, the chyle is not milky, but whey-like or transparent. 



Sir Benjamin Brodie, in 1816, fed a cat on jelly, and a dog on 

 isinglass jelly : the animals were killed after two hours. The 

 stomachs were found nearly empty, the duodena filled with a 

 mixture apparently of chyle and jelly ; the lacteals and thoracic 

 ducts contained transparent chyle, which coagulated spontaneously. 

 He likewise fed a dog on lard, after a fast of thirty-six hours, and in 

 three hours killed the animal. Some lard was found in the stomach, 

 some fluid of albuminous character in the duodenum, the same 

 tinged with bile in the ileum, and in the thoracic duct perfect 

 milky chyle.* 



The molecular base is present in the lacteals from the very com- 

 mencement, even from the villi of the intestines. It seems to con- 

 sist of almost infinitely small particles (fig. 172 a) of oleaginous or 

 fatty matter, thrown into this form by contact with the pancreatic 

 secretion, as so well proved by Bernard. The particles do not 

 look like oil under the microscope ; their outline is not definite or 

 sharp, and from this circumstance, as well as from their extreme 

 minuteness, it is not easy to assign them an exact size. In 

 fact, they vary somewhat. Mr. Gulliver makes their diameter 

 __i__th of an inch. Thus the white colour of the chyle does not 

 depend on precisely the same cause as that of the milk, for the 



* "Selections from Notes of Physiological Experiments," by Sir B. C. 

 Brodie, Bart., MS. pp. 39, 40, 41. 



VOL. II. U 



