CHYLE AND LYMPH. 349 



Under special conditions the lymph may be so rich in finely divided fat that 

 it appears like chyle. Such lymph has been investigated by HENSEN in a case of 

 lymph fistula in a ten-year-old boy, and by LANG 1 in a case of lymph fistula in 

 the upper part of the left thigh of a girl of seventeen. The lymph investigated 

 by HENSEN varied in the quantity of fat, as an average of nineteen analyses, 

 between 2.8 and 36.9 p. m.; while that investigated by LANG contained 24.85 

 p. m. of fat. 



The quantity of lymph secreted must naturally change considerably 

 under various conditions, and there are no means of measuring it. The 

 size of the flow of lymph is, as HEIDENHAIN suggests, no measure of the 

 abundance of supply of nutritive material to the organs, and the lymph- 

 tubes act according to him as " drain-tubes/' removing the excess of 

 fluid from the lymph fissures as soon as the pressure therein rises to a 

 certain height. Attempts have been made to determine the quantity 

 of lymph flowing in 24 hours through the thoracic duct of animals. Ac- 

 cording to HEIDENHAIN the quantity averages 640 cc. for a dog weighing 

 10 kilos. 



Determinations of the quantity of lymph in man have also been 

 attempted. NOEL-PATON 2 obtained 1 cc. of lymph per minute from the 

 severed thoracic duct of a patient weighing 60 kilos. The quantity in 

 the 24 hours cannot be calculated from this amount. In the case of 

 MUNK and ROSENSTEIN, 1134-1372 grams of chyle were collected within 

 12-13 hours after partaking of food. In the fasting condition or after 

 starving for 18 hours they found 50 to 70 grams per hour, sometimes 120 

 grams and above, especially in the first few hours after powerful muscular 

 exercise. 



Several circumstances have a marked influence on the extent of lymph 

 secretion. During starvation less lymph is secreted than after partak- 

 ing of food. NASSE 3 has observed that the formation of lymph in dogs 

 is increased 36 per cent more after feeding with meat than after feeding 

 with potatoes, and about 54 per cent more than after 24 hours' depriva- 

 tion of food. In this connection mention must be made of the important 

 observations of ASHER and BARBEEA 4 that with pure protein diet the 

 lymph current is increased in the thoracic cavity, and also that the increase 

 in the lymph secretion runs parallel with the elimination of nitrogen in 

 the urine, i.e., with the absorption of the protein from the digestive tract. 



An increase in the total quantity of blood, as by transfusion of blood, 

 also especially in preventing the flow of blood by means of ligatures, 



1 Hensen, Pfliiger's Arch., 110; Lang, see Maly's Jahresber., 4. 



2 Journ. of Physiol., 11. 



3 Cited from Hoppe-Seyler, Physiol. Chem., 593. 



4 The works of Asher and collaborators, Barbera, Gies, and Busch, upon lymph 

 forrration may be found in Zeitschr. f. Biologie, 36, 37, 40. 



