ON THE PATHS OF ABSORPTION FOR PROTEIDS.* 



BY LAFAYETTE B. MENDEL. 



THE text-books of physiology agree, at present, in assigning 

 to the portal circulation the task of transporting away from 

 the alimentary canal ingested proteids after they have been 

 modified by the natural digestive processes. The experimental 

 evidence in favor of this view is familiar, and has scarcely been 

 questioned; recently, however, Asher and Barbara f have 

 published the results of an experiment which leads them to 

 conclude that the thoracic duct forms though perhaps only 

 to a small extent a channel for the transportation of digested 

 proteids to the blood. These investigators experimented upon 

 a large dog having a well-healed gastric fistula. A cannula 

 was introduced into the thoracic duct of the animal after it 

 had fasted for sixty hours. During continued narcosis the 

 hunger-lymph was collected for an hour ; two hundred grams 

 of dry albumin (from blood) were then introduced into the 

 stomach through the fistula and thereupon the lymph collected 

 for six hours in hourly portions. Total solids, ash, and total 

 nitrogen were determined in the seven portions, and the pro- 

 teid content of the lymph was calculated from these data. 

 The results obtained may be summarized as follows: 



Experiment of Asher and Barbera. 

 AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF LYMPH, PER HOUR. 



Lymph, 



Total solids 

 if 



Ash 

 



Nitrogen 

 



Proteid (N X 6.25) 



" " percent 6.056 5.632 



* Reprinted from the Amer. Jour, of Physiol., vol. ii. 



t Asher and Barbera : Centralblatt f. Physiologic, 1897, , p. 403. "Der 



