4 
LYMPHATICS. 
163 
vessels do not appear in the mesentery until the food has 
passed the orifice of the pancreatic duct. The observations 
of Sanders and Bonchardet remove all doubt as to the ab¬ 
sorption of the product of the digestion of fatty matter by the 
lacteals, for these observers not only found that in dogs the 
proportion of fat in the chyle was increased with an increase 
of fat taken in their food, but that the particular kind of fat 
given to the dog was recognized in the chyle. We have also 
seen that a certain portion escapes the lacteals and is absorbed 
directly by the blood vessels, and it is an important question 
to determine at the present day whether the lacteals, in addi¬ 
tion to their more prominent functions, are not concerned in 
the absorption of drinks, the albuminoids, the salines and the 
saccharine matter. 
The functional effects of this system are very important 
and extremely active in the constitution at large, for we are 
certain that the various organs of the body are continually 
changing, either wholly or partially, their component parts, 
both for renovation and alteration, while it appears to be the 
office of the arteries to build up new parts and remove the 
waste of others, the old elements being removed by lympha¬ 
tic absorption. 
By this wonderful power the roots of the temporary teeth 
are absorbed, in order that their crowns may more easily give 
way; and in this manner the vascular cartilages are taken up 
by the absorbents to make room for the bony deposits. When 
the animal approaches maturity it is by the lymphatics that 
the dead parts are separated from the living, by sloughing and 
ulceration, and by their coagulated lymph and extravasated 
blood. 
The most important of the functional offices of the lym¬ 
phatics is the preservation of life under casualties. Long 
fasting is thus tolerated through their capability of displacing 
the animal oil or marrow from the bones, which, with the fat 
from the body, is employed to make up the want. Hiberna¬ 
ting animals live during their torpidity by a slow absorption 
of adipose matter, the absorbents seeming to possess the 
power also of selecting the matter they take. The lacteals 
