1885.] and the Transference of Food Materials. 89 



But this is no longer the case. In very numerous instances it has 

 now been shown that amoeboid cells are actively concerned in the 

 transference and assimilation of nutriment. Observations on this 

 point have chiefly been made upon animals low down in the scale of 

 organisation, but have not been confined to these. For it has been 

 demonstrated that a similar process occurs also in some fishes, whilst, 

 as regards both normal and pathological tissue-absorption, strong 

 evidence has been adduced in favour of the active agency of lymph- 

 or white blood-corpuscles in the production of these changes. 



The views of physiologists upon the subject of absorption would 

 seem, in fact, to have taken a fresh direction, and the importance of 

 the part played in the process by amoeboid cells is coming to be very 

 generally recognised. This being the case, I have been led again to 

 turn my attention to the question of intestinal absorption in Verte- 

 brates, considering it with reference not only to the mode of passage 

 of fat into the lacteals, but also to the possibility of other alimentary 

 substances being conveyed in a similar manner. With this object I 

 have devoted a considerable amount of time at intervals during the 

 last two or three years to a renewed investigation of the subject, 

 with the assistance of a grant derived from the Government Grant 

 Fund. The principal results arrived at in this investigation I propose 

 now briefly to lay before the Society. 



By far the most important of these results is the establishment of 

 the fact that during absorption of food from the intestine the lymph 

 corpuscles migrate in large numbers into the lacteals, and these for 

 the most part become disintegrated and dissolved in the chyle. This 

 is the case not only after a meal containing fat, but also after feeding 

 with substances devoid of that alimentary principle ; it is, therefore 

 a phenomenon of general occurrence during absorption, and the carry- 

 ing of fatty particles into the lacteals after a meal containing fat by 

 the immigrating leucocytes, must be regarded as merely incidental to 

 a more general function. 



The number of leucocytes which thus pass from the tissue of a 

 villus into its lacteal, is often so great that the blind end of the villus 

 may be almost blocked by them. Lower down, however, i.e., nearer 

 the attachment of the villus, there are only very few to be seen, and 

 some of these are only the more persistent nuclei of corpuscles, the 

 protoplasm of which is already dissolved. Others are seen swollen 

 and partially disintegrated, and, indeed, in preparations in which the 

 cells have been fixed by the action of osmic acid, every stage of dis- 

 integration may be traced. 



This immigration and solution of numerous leucocytes in the con- 

 tents of the lacteals must be the means of conveying a large amount 

 of proteid material, derived from their dissolved protoplasm and nuclei, 

 into the chyle. And any other material which may be mechanically 



