18 E. A. Schäfer, 



paration of blood will readily understand the kind of change wMch 

 takes place. A trace of alkali which is insufflcient when mixed with 

 the blood to produce any appreciable change in the coloured corpnscles, 

 sensitive as these are to the production in them of alteration of form 

 under the influenae of reagents, will rapidly cause all the white 

 corpuscles to swell up and to become completely disintegrated and 

 dissolved. 



The Solution of most of the lymph-corpuscles , which have wan- 

 dered into the lacteals of the vüli, in the chyle which is already 

 there, would therefore not be an isolated fact. It accords perfectly 

 with what we already know regarding the liability of these bodies 

 to undergo Solution, even in the fluids of the body, and it would ac- 

 count better than any other hypothesis for the fact that the corpuscles 

 in question are far more numerous in the commencing than in the 

 more deeply seated lacteals. But apart from any indirect mode of 

 reasoning there is direct evidence that this Solution and disintegration 

 is what does actually occur. In specimens which have been fixed by 

 osmic acid and have been afterwards hardened by alcohol or freezing 

 and cut into sections, lijmph- corpuscles may he seen in the lacteals 

 especially in those of the villi in all stages of disintegration. This is 

 shown in figs. 1, 2 and 4 (pl. X). 



It is not ükely that this change is produced by the reagent. 

 Osmic acid is well known to be pre- eminent in the rapidity with 

 which it küls and fixes protoplasmic structures in the form which 

 they are exhibiting at the moment of action of the reagent. More- 

 over it does not produce in the white corpuscles of the blood changes 

 such as those noticed in the lymph- corpuscles within the lacteals, 

 nor does it appear to alter in any way those lymph -ceUs which are 

 in the tissue of the mucous membrane. Probably then we shall be 

 correct in infering that these appearances do reaUy indicate a Solution 

 of the immigrated lymph -corpuscles, which thus cause an accession 

 of dissolved proteid matters and the other organic and inorganic sub- 

 stances which they may contain, to the contents of the lacteals. 



As the result then of these observations it is probably safe to 

 assert that, during absorption, lymph-corpuscles are continually passing 

 from the tissue of the mucous membrane of the villus into the lacteal 



