302 



LYMPH. 



concludes his discussion of the subject, in his Clinical Pathology of 

 the Blood, as follows : " From the foregoing discussion it is evident 

 that full medicolegal requirements for the positive identification 

 of blood-stains may be met, under some conditions, by the biologic 

 test. These conditions are the positive proof by the hemin test 

 that the material is blood, and the occurrence of a flocculent pre- 

 cipitate appearing within one to three hours in the suspected speci- 

 men and in no other of the controls when a potent serum is added 

 in proportion of 1 : 50 of blood. 



" While these conditions can usually be secured when dealing 

 with fresh blood in considerable quantities, in the writer's opinion 

 and experience the material submitted for medicolegal examination 

 is more apt to be old, scanty, and impure, and the difficulty of 

 securing a fully satisfactory test by this method is thereby greatly 

 increased. With such material one has often to be content with 

 faint turbidities instead of flocculent precipitates, and in such cases 

 it would appear, as Stoenesco maintains, that a guarded opinion be 

 given and the claim made only that the specimen is probably human 

 blood. It should be added that an absolutely faultless technic is 

 required, and that this can be obtained only after considerable 

 experience." 



LYMPH. 



Lymph is an alkaline fluid which is derived from the blood, 

 and while, generally speaking, its constituents are the same as 

 those of the plasma, still these differ in amount to a considerable 

 degree ; nor is the lymph obtained from all parts of the body 

 uniform in composition. 



Chemical Composition of I/ymph. The following anal- 

 ysis is of lymph obtained from a case of fistula of the thoracic 

 duct in man, and is reported by Munk and Rosenstein. In 100 

 parts of lymph there are : 



Total solids 3.7 to 5.5 



Proteids 3.4 "4.1 



Substances soluble in ether 0.046" 0.13 



Sugar (dextrose) 0.1 



Salts 0.8 "0.9 



In another specimen the inorganic constituents were found by 

 Hensler and Danhardt to be : 



Nad 0.614 



Na 2 O 0.057 



K 2 O 0.049 



CaO 0.013 



MgO 

 Fe 2 3 



So 



. traces 

 0.033 



From lymph only 0.1 per cent, of fibrinogen can be obtained, 

 while from plasma the amount obtainable is 0.4 per cent. Besides 

 fibrinogen, paraglobulin and serum-albumin are also present. 



