98 PRODUCTION OF FIBRIN. 



Some chemists, adopting the views of Liebig respecting the essential 

 Fibrin not an difference "between blood fibrin and muscle fibrin, look upon 

 effete body. ^Q f orme r substance, not as a histogenetic, but as an effete 

 body, a conclusion which, of course, would have an important bearing 

 upon the interpretation of the function of the glands as here given, as like- 

 wise upon that in the corresponding case of the chyle. The weight of 

 physiological evidence is, however, so strongly against this doctrine, that 

 we are constrained to retain the old one, and therefore to regard the pro- 

 duction of fibrin as one of the important duties of the lymphatic system. 



The absorbent vessels, whether lacteals or lymphatics, have therefore 

 its mode of a common duty f changing albuminose or albumen into 

 production and fibrin, and thereby of compensating for the constant waste of 

 that substance which is going on in the wear and tear of 

 the muscular system. The constitution of the urine proves that the 

 amount of muscular fibrin destroyed in short periods of time is very 

 great. "We can not estimate the hourly consumption at less than 62 

 grains. Such a waste must demand an equivalent compensation, if 

 the animal mechanism is to be kept up unimpaired, and every^ care is 

 therefore taken to omit no means which may incidentally offer for hus- 

 banding the necessary materials. The action of the lymphatics illus- 

 trates this principle significantly. Passing through all the soft solids 

 where exudation of albumen from the blood-vessels can take place, they 

 collect the materials that would otherwise go to waste, and add thereto 

 many of the products arising from the disintegration and decay of the 

 soft parts themselves. Receiving all these, they transmit them through 

 their windings in the glands, and thus submit them to the action of the 

 innumerable cells which are there coming into existence. As in the egg 

 of a bird, in which, as the albumen slowly disappears, the muscular tis- 

 sues of the young chicken arise, so here the serous portion disappears, 

 and fibrin comes in its stead, and this is hurried forward to the torrent 

 of the circulation, and thrown into the blood-vessels, to be by them dis- 

 tributed to all parts of the mechanism, wherever the muscular tissues are 

 in want of repair. 



But, besides this function of the elaboration of fibrin, there can be no 

 Cutaneous question that the lymphatics have other incidental uses, 

 lymphatic ab- Many facts are known which prove that those of the skin 

 exert a powerful agency in absorbing liquid material. Thus 

 a person who has abstained from water will, after he has immersed his 

 body in a bath, not only find his weight increased, but the sensation of 

 thirst abated. Instances of the kind are on record where sailors, in open 

 boats without fresh water, have assuaged the torments of thirst by im- 

 mersing their bodies in the sea. Nay, it is even asserted that in certain 

 conditions water may thus be obtained from the atmospheric air, and in 



