Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Physiological chemistry (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
30/572
![only 785; according to Marchand and Colberg, human lymph contains inorganic and organic matters in almost equal parts. It is hopeless at present to attempt to calculate the quantity of lymph contained in the whole animal body, since we have no fixed points of support to assist us in such a calculation. Even if the lymph of different parts were not so variously constituted as from certain facts and on the- oretical grounds appears to be probably the case,—and if the rapidity of the lymph-current in the different vessels (before and after the passage of the lymph through the glands) were not so various, and, moreover, so dependent on internal and external (that is to say, physical and chemico- physiological) conditions, as has been shown by Noll,1—we should still be far less able to calculate the capacity of the lymphatics than of the bloodvessels, since we are much less acquainted with the anatomy of the former than of the latter. We referred, in our remarks on the quantity of chyle formed in a definite time, to the reasons which render the amount of fluid escaping from the main branch of a lymphatic system, an inefficient criterion of the quantity of this juice formed within any given period. The following facts may, however, aid us in arriving at an approximate idea of the quantity of lymph formed or flowing into the vessels; Collard de Martigny2 found that 9 grains of this fluid flowed in 10 minutes from the thoracic duct of a rabbit which had fasted for 24 hours. J. Miiller assumes the capacity of the four lymphatic hearts which he discovered in the frog, at about 4 cubic lines, and as these would make about 60 pulsations in a minute, these four lymphatic hearts would drive about 240 cubic lines of lymph into the veins in this period, provided that they are completely emptied at every contraction, which, however, is not the case. Moreover, the lymphatic system is of far more relative importance in frogs and cold-blooded animals than in those in which there is warm blood. Bidder3 believes, from his experiments on animals, that in an adult man about 13 kilogrammes [about 28*61bs.] pass in the course of 24 hours from the thoracic duct into the subclavian vein. He is of opinion that only 3 kilogrammes [6*61bs.] are true chyle (or digested nutrient matter), and that 10 kilogrammes [22 lbs.] are true lymph. Hence in the course of 24 hours a quantity of lymph, averaging from l-8th to l-7th of the weight of the body is formed and poured into the blood. The origin of the lymph has been referred by all physiologists to the juice which flows from the capillaries into the parenchyma of the organs, either for their nutrition or for the formation of the secretions. Although physiologists had previously shown that the character and quantity of the lymph depend upon the fluid conveyed through the capillaries, and transuded from them, these views have recently been fully confirmed by Noll. It therefore now only remains for the chemist to institute an accurate comparison of the blood-plasma, the parenchymatous fluid the secretions and the lymph, in order to deduce the chemical equations giving the scientific expression for the processes which give rise to the formation of the lymph. We are, however, still very far distant from the attainment of this aim, towards which our chemical investigations 1 Zeitschr. f. rat. Med. Bd. 9, S. 52-93. a Journ. de Phyeiol T 8 p 266 3 Verdauungss'dfte und Stoffwechsel. S. 285.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136300_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
