THE LYMPH AND CHYLE. xlix 



exposure to air, is doubtless generally due to the presence of blood-cor- 

 puscles, and may be explained in the same way as the occasional red colour 

 of lymph. 



Like blood and lymph, both of which fluids it greatly resembles in con- 

 stitution, the chyle consists of a liquid holding small particles in suspension. 

 These particles are, 1. Chyle-corpuscles, or chyle-globules, precisely like the 

 lymph-globules and pale blood-corpuscles already described. 2. Molecules, 

 of almost immeasurably minute but remarkably uniform size. These abound 

 in the fluid, and form an opaque white molecular matter diffused in it, which 

 Mr. Gulliver has named the molecular base of the chyle. The addition of 

 ether instantly dissolves this matter, and renders the chyle nearly, but not 

 quite, transparent ; whence it may be inferred that the molecules are minute 

 particles of fatty matter, and no doubt the chief cause of the opacity and 

 whiteness of the chyle. According to the late Prof. H. Miiller, they are 

 each coated with a fine film of albuminoid matter. They exhibit the usual 

 tremulous movement common to the molecules of many other substances. 

 3. Oil-globules ; these are of various sizes, but much larger than the mole- 

 cules above described, and are often found in the chyle in considerable 

 numbers. 4. Minute spherules (Gulliver), from -Q-^^Q-^ to -3^-3 of an inch 

 in diameter ; probably of an albuminous nature, and distinguished from the 

 fatty molecules by their varying magnitude and their insolubility in ether. 

 The Free nuclei described in the chyle by Kolliker he now considers to be 

 derived from corpuscles accidentally ruptured in the examination. 



The plasma, or liquid part of the chyle, contains fibrin, so that chyle 

 coagulates on being drawn from the vessels, and nearly all the chyle-cor- 

 puscles, with part of the molecular base, are involved in the clot. The 

 serum which remains resembles in composition the serum of lymph ; the 

 most notable difference between them being the larger proportion of fatty 

 matter contained in the chyle-serum. 



The following analyses of lymph and chyle exhibit the proportions of the different 

 ingredients ; but it must be explained that the amount of the corpuscles cannot be 

 separately given, the greater part of them being included in the clot and reckoned 

 as fibrin. No. 1 is the mean of two analyses, by Gubler and Quevenne, of human 

 lymph taken during life from the lymphatics of the thigh ; No. 2, the mean of three 

 analyses by Gmelin of lymph from the thoracic duct of horses after privation of food ; 

 No. 3, by Dr. 0. Rees, of chyle from the lacteals of an ass, after passing the 

 mesenteric glands. 



L IT. III. 



Water . . . 937'32 939-70 902'37 



Fibrin . . . 0'595 10-60 370 



Albumen . . . 42'775 38'83 35-16 



Fat . . . . 6-51 a little 36'01 

 Extractive matter . 5 - 05 



Salts . 7-75' 10 ' 87 22 ' 7(i 



1000- 1000- 1000- 



The extractive matters of the chyle and lymph probably vary with the nature of the 

 food : they generally contain sugar and urea in appreciable quantities. 



The chyle, when taken from the lacteal vessels before it has reached the glands, 

 is generally found to coagulate less firmly than in a more advanced stage of its 

 progress. In like manner the lymph, before passing the lymphatic glands, occasion- 

 ally exhibits the same weak coagulation ; but Mr. Lane justly remarks, that the 

 lymph does not differ in coagulability in the different stages of its progress so 



d 



