I 



256 THE BLOOD AND THE LYMPH 



CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LYMPH. 



Water 986.3 



Fibrin 1.1 



Albumin 1.4 



Alkali-albuminate 0.9 



Urea and leucin 1.0 



Other extractives 0.5 



Salts . 8.8 



1000.0 



A mixture of lymph and of chyle taken from the thoracic duct Rees found 

 to contain 9.5 per cent, of solids, of which 7.8 per cent, were proteids and 

 1 per cent, each extractives and fatty materials. This might be termed 

 digestion-lymph. Note that as compared with plasma, tissue-lymph 

 contains much more water, much less fibrin, and less salts, fats, and 

 sugars. The lymph is also much more variable than is plasma, since it 

 depends more or less for its composition on the metabolism of the tissue 

 where it is found. A sample of pericardial fluid (lymph) was found to 

 be richer in solids, while cerebro-spinal fluid (lymph) Hoppe-Seyler 

 found very little different from that reported above from the man's leg. 

 Chyle is richer in fats and in proteids than lymph, but it is otherwise 

 similar. Synovia (of the joints) contains much the same solids as lymph 

 but more of them, and in addition a mucin-like substance (Salkowski). 



THE CHEMICAL COMPONENTS or THE EKYTHROCYTES or red corpuscles. 

 These little bodies consist largely of water, hemoglobin, nucleo-proteid, 

 lecithin, cholesterin, and salts of potassium and of phosphoric acid. 

 The solids are one- third, or a little more, of the whole mass of moist 

 corpuscles. The proteid stroma of the red corpuscles appears to be a 

 globulin. It is noteworthy that while sodium salts much exceed in 

 amount the potassium salts in the plasma, in the erythrocytes the reverse 

 is true. 



Hemoglobin is a variable histone-like globulin called globin combined 

 with about 4 per cent, of a non-albuminous, iron-containing pigment 

 of constant composition called hematin. It is theoretically interesting 

 that hemoglobin is probably nearly or quite identical with the pigment 

 of chlorophyll or plant-green so nearly universal in the vegetable kingdom. 

 It is by means of this substance that the plant breathes and in the sun- 

 light is able to construct carbohydrates out of purely inorganic materials, 

 and through the agency of the hemoglobin in animals their tissues are 

 supplied with the metabolic and life-giving oxygen. When combined 

 with the latter gas, hemoglobin is called oxy-hemoglobin, and when this 

 oxygen has been removed it is called reduced hemoglobin. The empir- 

 ical formula of the hemoglobin of the dog is about C 758 H 1253 N 195 S 3 FeO 218 , 

 while Gamgee calculates that the hemoglobin of the ox has the 

 formula C 759 H 1208 N 210 S 2 FeO 204 , giving a molecular weight of 16,669. 

 Although crystalline, oxy-hemoglobin is quite indiffusible, perhaps 

 because of this large size of its molecule. It may be this quality which 



