ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
593 
Analysis of Continental Journals. 
By G. Fleming, M.R.C.V.S., Royal Engineers. 
ON THE ABSORPTION OF SOLID MATTER DEPOSITED IN 
THE TISSUES. 
By M. C. Davaine. 
The following observations on the transport in the body 
of foreign solid matter of a definite form were made before 
the Society of Biology by M. Davaine. He says : 
The possibility of the absorption of solid matter deposited 
in the tissues of animals has no longer been a matter for doubt 
since our regretted colleague Follin showed that particles of 
Vermillion and charcoal, introduced into the skin by tattooing, 
might, after a certain time, be found in the neighbouring 
lymphatic ganglia. ( Comptes Renclus de la Societe de Biologie , 
vol. i, p. 79). This fact has recently been confirmed by an 
observation of M. Robin, who observed the ganglia in the 
right arm-pit of a criminal to be dark-coloured by particles 
of charcoal which had been derived from tattooing the fore- 
arm. ( Journal de V Anatomie et de la Physiologie, 1869, 
p. 465). Our colleague, M. Charcot, has also witnessed a 
similar instance, but this he has not published. 
In these cases, however, the phenomena at work in con- 
veying for a short distance solid particles exclusively by the 
lymphatic vessels are somewhat local. The facts I am about 
to relate belong to a different order, and have reference to the 
absorption of solid bodies of a notable volume being carried 
with the blood into all the organs. 
The Society may perhaps remember that, in the course of 
the year I860, I laid before it drawings of spores which I had 
on several occasions observed in the blood-vessels of several 
herbivorous animals. These composite spores — conical or fusi- 
form — were derived from parasitical fungi on the plants which 
were given to these creatures as food. It might be conceived 
that pointed spores could find their way into the blood-vessels 
through the mucous membrane of the intestines, and I have 
endeavoured to verify this fact experimentally ; but having 
been unable to procure a sufficiently large number of fusiform 
or conical spores, I made two guinea-pigs consume for several 
days great quantities of the maize blight ( ustilago maidis), 
the spores of which are spherical. Notwithstanding, how- 
