LYMPH AND CHYLE. 37 



otherwise, even long after their formation. The spectrum analysis, however, is 

 said to be a more delicate test of fresh blood. 



LYMPH AND CHYLE. 



The Lymph and the Chyle are almost identical in constitution, though the 

 proportion of their constituents varies in different parts of the vascular system. 

 The lymph is the secretion of a system of vessels and glands, to be more fully 

 described in the sequel, which takes up from the worn-out tissues that which is 

 still available for purposes of nutrition and returns it into the veins close to the 

 heart, there to be mixed with the mass of the blood. The chyle is a fluid secreted 

 by the villi of the small intestines from the food. It is intermingled with the 

 lymph, and is poured into the circulation through the same channels. 1 (See 

 the description of the Thoracic Duct, Lacteals, and Ductus Lymphaticus dexter, 

 in the body of the work.) 



On microscopical examination, chyle displays besides the lymph -corpuscles 

 a large number of fatty granules, "the granular base of the chyle" (Fig. 5, a), 

 oil globules, free nuclei and a few red blood- 

 globules. The white color of the chyle is due 

 to the abundance of the molecular base. These 

 molecules are almost or entirely absent in 

 lymph. 



In other respects lymph and chyle are indis- 

 tinguishable by microscopic examination, but in 

 external appearance they are very different. 



Chyle is a milk-white fluid, which coagulates 

 spontaneously, and then on standing separates 

 more or less completely into a clear part, the 

 liguor chyli, which is identical with the liquor 

 sanguinis, and a thinnish jelly-like clot, consist- 

 ing of fibrin in which chyle-corpuscles and the 

 fatty molecules are entangled. Its analysis, as Chyle f 



given by Dr. G. O. Rees, 2 from the chyle of a 

 criminal examined shortly after his execution, and in whom the thoracic duct 

 was found distended with chyle, is as follows : 



"Water 90.48 



Albumen, with traces of fibrinous matter 7.08 



Aqueous extractive .56 



Alcoholic extractive or osmazome ........ .52 



Alkaline chloride, carbonate and sulphate, with traces of alkaline phos- 

 phate and oxide of iron .44 



Fatty matters .92 



100.00 



Lymph, as its name implies, is a watery fluid. In the lymph the molecular 

 base is absent, and the lymph-corpuscles are very few in number, and indeed 

 are said by Kolliker to be absent in the smaller vessels. According to the 

 same author, the size of the lymph-globules increases as the fluid ascends 

 higher in the course of the circulation. In this view the lymph is at first a 

 mere albuminous fluid, and the chyle at first a mere albumino-fatty fluid, the 

 cells in both being produced during the passage of the fluid through the glands 

 (lymphatic or mesenteric, as the case may be), and being further elaborated, 

 and even new cells produced by the division of the old ones, in the course of 

 the circulation. The presence of blood-globules in the lymph or in the chyle 



1 It may not be amiss to remind the student that the lacteal or chyliferous vessels only convey 

 a portion of the nutritions matter from the food, and this only during digestion. At other times 

 they seem to act precisely as ordinary lymphatics. 



2 Phil. Trans. 1842, p. 82. 



