96 
STOMACHIC ABSORPTION. 
factory explanation of the asserted fact. Chirac found the 
bladder becoming full of urine after ligatures were put on the 
urethra, and he excited urinary vomiting by ligatures upon the 
renal arteries. Darvin and Brandt detected in the urine 
nitrate and prussiate of potash which had been introduced 
into the stomach, although they could find no traces of them 
in the blood : a fact which has been confirmed by Fodene, 
who not only discovered in the urine the cyanhydrate of iron 
and potash, previously introduced into the stomach, though 
still could not detect them in the blood. Tippi, in 18 25, an- 
nounced a discovery tending to show a direct communication 
between the lymphatic system and the kidneys ; asserting that 
“ on a level with the second and third lumbar vertebrae, the 
lymphatic vessels split into two orders, one ascending to the 
thoracic duct, the others descending to open into the renal 
veins and the pelvis of the kidney. Though in after times 
neither the discovery of Lippi nor the results obtained by 
Chirac — notwithstanding the minute researches and experi- 
ments of Tiedmann and Gruchen entered into on the same 
subject; or that, at length, based upon the opinion of the 
immortal Haller, and those of the most distinguished physi- 
ologists — science abandoned all supposition of the existence of 
any vessels, between the stomach and kidneys, or stomach 
and bladder : accounting for the promptitude and celerity of 
passage of certain substances from the stomach into the 
urinary passages, through the activity and rapidity of absorp- 
tion and circulation. 
It was reserved to Bernard to exhibit, as demonstrable, the 
existence of vessels constituting a direct communication be- 
tween the stomach and bladder or the kidneys ; or else they 
show the great probability, under certain conditions of the 
organism, of the ingesta, in part or altogether, being eliminated 
with the urine, without their following the course of the 
general circulation. Many times he had observed, in injecting 
cyanine of iron and potassium into the stomach of dogs, 
during digestion, that he quickly detected their presence in 
the urine and renal veins, but not in the emulgent arteries ; 
while the contrary happened if the animals were at the time 
fasting. This led him to conclude that, during digestion, the 
blood in the posterior vena cava became subject to reflux, and 
that the matters for absorption were conveyed through the 
vena portae ; under whose direction they immediately entered 
the renal veins. Many facts show, besides, that this inversion 
of circulation in the vena cava is followed by one of tur- 
gescence in the vessel, a state attendant on stomachic diges- 
tion, and that, on the diminution of such turgeacenee, whether it 
