88 Prof. E. A. Schafer. The Proteids of the Chyle [Jan. 22, 



moreover, they are amoeboid and capable of altering their shape and 

 position, and of taking up particles with which they may come in 

 contact, I was long since led to infer that they might probably be 

 regarded as active agents in effecting the transference of fat-particles 

 from the columnar epithelinm to the lacteals. This inference was 

 based upon the following experiment, which I have often repeated. 

 An animal is killed during digestion of food containing fat and whilst 

 absorption is freely proceeding. On examining the small intestine it 

 is found that the columnar epithelium-cells, the lymph-cells of the 

 mucous membrane, and the lacteal vessels, are all occupied by particles 

 of fatty matter. This fact can be readily substantiated by the mere 

 examination of the fresh tissue, but it becomes strikingly manifest if 

 a piece of the mucous membrane is placed in a 1 per cent, solution 

 of osmic acid for a few hours, and after subsequently macerating in 

 water for two or three days, is broken up with needles in a drop of 

 glycerine. The fat-particles being now stained black are very con- 

 spicuous, and it is easy to recognise their presence in the epithelium- 

 cells, where they are often of considerable size, and in the lymph-cells, 

 where they are generally small. 



Sections of the intestinal mucous membrane, and especially longi- 

 tudinal sections of the villi, also show the fat-particles in the epithe- 

 lium-cells, in the lymph-cells, and in the lacteals, but none in any 

 other structures. The inference seems, therefore, unavoidable that the 

 amoeboid lymph-cells are the carriers of the fat-particles. 



Nor is this view in itself an improbable one or without analogy. 

 For the intussusception of particles is one of the most characteristic 

 phenomena exhibited by amoeboid cells, which will carry such incepted 

 matters along with them in their slow movements from place to place. 

 When vermilion is injected into the blood-vessels, the particles of 

 pigment are taken in by the white corpuscles of the blood, and when 

 these emigrate from the vessels the particles are carried with them, 

 and may thus reach the radicles of the lymphatics. In the alveoli 

 of the lung and in the smaller bronchial tubes, amoeboid cells are 

 constantly to be found filled with inhaled carbon particles which they 

 have taken up from the mucus by which these particles have been 

 intercepted. These cells are seemingly white corpuscles which have 

 emigrated from the blood-vessels, and they pass back again into the 

 lung-tissue between the epithelium- cells of the alveoli, carrying with 

 them the fine particles of carbon, and eventually also reach the 

 radicles of the lymphatics in which the carbon is deposited. Never- 

 theless, the view in question has not until lately met with any general 

 acceptance, probably partly owing to the fact that contrary statements 

 regarding the path of fat-absorption have been made by distinguished 

 authorities, partly because it seemed to be an isolated instance of the 

 participation of amoeboid cells in absorption. 



