336 ABSORPTION FROM THE PERITONEAL CAVITY. 



In similar experiments Meltzer * has reported that the color 

 appeared in the lymph before it appeared in the urine. De- 

 tailed protocols of the experiments have not been published, 

 and few definite statements are made with regard to the 

 urinary flow in these observations, or in those already 

 tabulated. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the 

 differences between our results are perhaps attributable to 

 variations in the method of collecting the urine. Thus in 

 Meltzer's experiments on direct intravenous injection of 

 colored fluid, intervals of seven to thirty-four minutes elapsed 

 before color was detected in the urine ; with intraperitoneal 

 injections intervals of twenty-three to eighty minutes are 

 recorded. The results were apparently independent of the 

 size of the animal used. The longest interval that I have 

 observed was eighteen minutes in Exp. IV. when only 2 c.c. 

 indigo-carmine solution were introduced. Furthermore the 

 actual amount of pigment appearing in the lymph was in no 

 case equivalent to more than a very small fraction of the pig- 

 ment introduced into the animal, or found in the urine. A 

 more satisfactory explanation does not suggest itself at 

 present ; there are, however, quite different and perhaps more 

 satisfactory ways of arriving at an answer to the main 

 problem concerned, f 



The experiments recorded in this paper are thus in no way 

 opposed to the " blood-vessel theory " of the absorption of 

 foreign substances from the peritoneal cavity. Rather they 

 conform with the results which are demanded by the con- 

 ditions and principles discussed at the outset. 



Meltzer, Journal of Physiology, 1897, xxii, p. 203. 



t In a recent paper on the absorption of various intraperitoneal fluids 

 when the lymph channels are excluded (in the rabbit), Roth concludes : 

 " Dabei findet eine langsame Resorption der isotonischen Losung durch die 

 Blutgefasse statt." Archiv fur Physiologic, 1898, p. 646. The older similar 

 experiments by Hamburger have been criticised by Adler and Meltzer, 

 Journal of Experimental Medicine, 1896, i, p. 482. 



