CHANGES IN THE CHYLE. 



93 



mesenteric glands, the percentage amount of albumen declines, and the 

 fat globules diminish in number. Simultaneously the special cells, to 

 which the name of chyle corpuscles is given, make their appearance, and 

 the liquid is now capable .of coagulating, owing to the production of 

 fibrin. These characters become more strikingly developed as the chyle 

 advances in the thoracic duct. The chyle corpuscles are eventually de- 

 veloped into red blood-cells. 



.It should be borne in mind, in all discussions respecting the composi- 

 tion of chyle in different parts of its course, that it must re- ,, . 



r -,11 It is affected by 



ceive transuded matters from the blood, and that this must transudation 

 more particularly occur on its passage through the mesen- fromtheblood - 

 teric glands. Owing to this, it is quite probable that, even though there 

 should be an actual consumption of albumen in accomplishing the meta- 

 morphoses which are taking place, the apparent percentage amount of 

 that ingredient may increase by transudation from the blood. It ap- 

 pears to me quite probable that the albuminous material in the lacteal, at 

 its very origin in the villus, has been derived to quite as great an extent 

 by transudation from the plexus of blood-vessels as by absorption from 

 the digested food. 



Whatever may be the special manner by which the fats pass from the 

 intestine into the lacteals, they have scarcely gained those saponificatiou 

 vessels before they undergo a change. The quantity of free of the fat - 

 fat diminishes, and that of saponified fat increases ; this is probably ac- 

 complished by soda obtained from the blood. * 



As to the fibrin, it can scarcely be supposed that the imperfectly co- 

 agulable variety which the chyle contains should have been Difference be- 

 derived by transudation through the vessels of the strongly ^^^^~ 

 contractile kind contained in the blood ; and, in view of all chyle-fibrin, 

 the circumstances of the case, it would appear that the explanation we shall 



offer of its direct origination from the 

 chyle albumen by oxidation is correct. 

 The chyle corpuscles are readily 

 distinguished from the blood- _. 



Nature of 



cells, not only by their white chyle cor- 

 appearance, but also by their actTo^^ 

 form. They are spheroidal, reagentson 

 and either homogeneous or 

 granular. Those of the frog are seen 

 in Fig. 31, at a a, sparsely scattered 

 among the elliptical blood-cells. The 

 photograph from which the engraving is 

 taken exhibits nearly the average pro- 



Chyle corpuscles with blood -cells, magnified 250 ,. ,, , -, ,. 



portion of these bodies in that animal. 



diameters. 



