328 CHYLE, LYMPH, TRANSUDATES AND EXUDATES. 



the blood-serum, but in larger quantities than in the blood; this depends 

 on the fact that the blood-corpuscles contain no sugar. The glycoyen 

 detected by DASTRE 1 in the lymph occurs only in the leucocytes. Accord- 

 ing to ROHMANN and BIAL, lymph contains a diastatic enzyme similar 

 to that in blood-plasma, and LEPINE 2 found that the chyle of a dog 

 during digestion has great glycolytic activity. The amount of urea has 

 been determined by WURTZ 3 as 0.12-0.28 p. m. The mineral bodies 

 appear to be the same 'as in plasma. 



As form-elements, -leucocytes and red blood-corpuscles are common 

 to both chyle and lymph. Chyle in fasting animals has the appearance 

 of lymph. After fatty food it is, on the contrary, milky, due partly to 

 small fat-globules, as in milk, and partly, indeed, mostly to finely divided 

 fat. The nature of the fat occurring in chyle depends upon the kind 

 of fat in the food. By far the greater part consists of neutral fat, and 

 even after feeding with large quantities of free fatty acids, MuNK 4 found 

 that the chyle contained chiefly neutral fat with only small amounts of 

 fatty acids or soaps. 



The gases of the chyle have not been studied, and it seems that the 

 gases of an entirely normal human lymph have not thus far been investi- 

 gated. The gases from dog-lymph contain, according to HAMMARSTEN, 

 only traces of oxygen, and consist of 37.453.1 per cent CO2 and 1.6 per 

 cent N, calculated at C., and 760 mm. mercury. The chief mass of the 

 carbon dioxide of the lymph seems to be in firm chemical combination. 

 Comparative analyses of blood and lymph have shown that the lymph 

 contains more carbon dioxide than arterial, but less than venous, blood. 

 The tension of the carbon dioxide of lymph is, according to PFLUGER 

 and STRASSBURG, S smaller than in venous, but greater than in arterial, 

 blood. 



The quantitative composition of the chyle must evidently be very 

 variable. 6 The analyses thus far made refer only to that mixture of chyle 

 and lymph which is obtained from the thoracic duct. The specific 

 gravity varies between 1.007 and 1.043. As an example of the compo- 

 sition of human chyle two analyses will be given. The first is by 

 OWEN-REES, of the chyle of an executed person, and the second by 



1 Compt. rend, de soc. biol., 47, and Compt. rend., 120; Arch, de Physiol. (5), 7. 



2 Rohmann and Bial, Pfliiger's Arch., 52, 53, and 55; Lupine, Compt. rend., 110. 



3 Compt. rend., 49. 



4 Virchow's Arch., 80 and 123. In regard to the analysis of the fat of chyle, see 

 Erben, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 30. 



f Hammarsten, Die Gase der Hundelymphe, Arbeiten aus d. physiol. Anstalt zu 

 Leipzig, 1871 ; Strassburg, Pfliiger's Archiv, 6. 



6 See also Panzer, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 30. 



