THE BLOOD AND THE LYMPH 255 



isolated. Water (80 per cent.), serum albumin, paraglobulin, nucleo- 

 proteid, fibrinogen, jecorin, hemoglobin, thrombin, dextrose, glycogen, 

 fats, lecithin, serum lutein, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium chloride, sodium 

 carbonate, sodium phosphate, potassium chloride, potassium phosphate, 

 potassium sulphate, calcium phosphate, magnesium phosphate, various 

 enzymes; lactic acid, kreatin, kreatinin, urea (trace only), uric acid, 

 xanthin, cholesterin, and carbon dioxide. This list of substances, repre- 

 senting potentially all that goes on chemically in the body one way or 

 another, will be found useful for future reference. Those to be used in 

 the body are given first. The last eight are products more or less of 

 katabolism, and are therefore mostly outward bound from the system. 



THE CHEMICAL COMPONENTS OF THE PLASMA AND LYMPH may be de- 



scribed together, for these two are practically alike save that the lymph 

 contains leukocytes and more water than the plasma. Plasma is whole 

 blood as it circulates in the arteries and veins minus the three sorts of 

 corpuscles. Lymph is found almost everywhere outside of the tubes 

 of the circulation, and everywhere, too, within the closed system of the 

 lymphatics, which are almost universal in the body. In the portal 

 veins (bearing the products of absorption from the gut) just after a meal 

 this lymph is white, being an emulsion, especially if the latter contain 

 much fat. It is there and then called chyle, as is also the contents of the 

 small intestine. 



Hammarsten found the plasma of horse's blood to have the following 

 composition : 



PLASMA'S CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. 



Water 917.6 



Fibrin (from fibrinogen) 6.5 



Paraglobulin 38.4 



Serum albumin 24 . 6 



Salts, fats, dextrose, kreatinin, etc. ("extractives") . . 12.9 



1000.0 



Human plasma has a somewhat smaller proportion of paraglobulin. 

 and a larger proportion of serum-albumin. When an animal fasts the 

 former increases and the latter decreases. The fats are tristearin, 

 tripalmitin, and triolein, while the carbohydrates are dextrose and 

 glycogen and perhaps animal-gum. The salts are the chloride, carbon- 

 ate, sulphate, and phosphate of sodium, etc., as given in the list above. 

 The katabolic nitrogenous substances are especially urea (0.016 per 

 cent.), kreatin, lactic acid (possibly carbonic acid and sarcolactic acid). 

 Carbon dioxide is present dissolved in the plasma as well as in the sodium 

 carbonate and leukocytes. 



In some lymph, perhaps rather thinner than the average, taken 

 from a fistula in a man's leg, Hensen and Dahnhardt found the following 

 proportions, nearly: 



