376 ABSORPTION. 



same substances will not be found in them. So with 

 poisons, such as opium and strychnia, in the experiments 

 of Magendie and Segalas. When one of these poisons was 

 put into a piece of intestine, of which the lacteals were 

 tied, but the blood-vessels were free, poisoning took place 

 within six minutes after returning the intestine into the 

 abdomen ; but if the vein or veins of the piece of intestine 

 were tied, so as to stop the circulation of blood, the effects 

 of the poison were delayed for an hour or more, though 

 the lacteals were free to absorb and carry it to the blood. 

 The numerous experiments, proving that poisons are not 

 absorbed, or only very slowly, after insertion into the 

 hinder extremities of animals in which the aorta or vena 

 cava inferior is tied, tend to the same conclusion, that these 

 are among the substances not absorbed by the lymphatic 

 or lacteal vessels, but absorbed without choice by the 

 blood-vessels. 



The rapidity with which matters may be absorbed from 

 the stomach, probably by the blood-vessels chiefly, and 

 diffused through the textures of the body, may be gathered 

 from the history of some experiments by Dr. Bence Jones. 

 Erom these it appears that even in a quarter of an hour 

 after being given on an empty stomach, chloride of lithium 

 may be diffused into all the vascular textures of the body, 

 and into some of the non-vascular, as the cartilage of the 

 hip-joint, as well as into the aqueous humour of the eye. 

 Into the outer part of the crystalline lens it may pass after 

 a time, varying from half an hour to an hour and a half. 

 Carbonate of lithia, when taken in five or ten grain doses 

 on an empty stomach, may be detected in the urine in 5 or 

 10 minutes ; or, if the stomach be full at the time of taking 

 the dose, in 20 minutes. It may sometimes be detected in 

 the urine, moreover, for six, seven, or even eight days. 



Some experiments on the absorption of various mineral 

 and vegetable poisons, by Mr. Savory, have brought to 

 light the singular fact, that, in some cases, absorption 



