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from its colour, is called lacteal fluid or chyle, 

 and another light yellow insoluble part, which i* 

 destined to form an excretion. This insoluble 

 part consists of such parts of the food, as can- 

 not be dissolved by the gastric juice, and of thf 

 bilious matter, which is precipitated in the form 

 of a coloured adipocere, and probably in this state 

 is united to certain parts of the chyme, which, by 

 their affinity, have determined its precipitation. 

 Both are now blended together. The absorbents, 

 which arise every where in the vilious surface of 

 the mucous membrane, absorb the ^dissolved part 

 and leave the midissol ved j but as the mass, by 

 means of this absorption, would at last become 

 very dry, before the whole of the chyle had 

 been taken up, a thin liquid humour is secreted 

 on the inside of the intestines, which unites it- 

 self with it, dissolves the chyle, and is afterwards 

 absorbed by the succeeding portions of the intes- 

 tines, so that when their contents arrive at the 

 sphincter, there is often none of the chyle left 

 in them. The nature of this mass, after excre- 

 tion, has been very little examined by former 

 Chemists; and the experiments which VAU- 

 QTJELIN and SAGE in later times have left us, 

 cannot be considered as complete, 



