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.)
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![soft semi-fluid mass of cholesterin. As a general rule, transudations, and especially those of a normal character, are by no means so rich in cholesterin as to admit of a quantitative determination of this consti- tuent ; but from the microscopic examination of the ether-extract even of normal transudations, we may arrive at the certain conclusion that the amount of cholesterin in the fluid either exceeds, or at all events very nearly reaches that of the true fats. The capillaries generally have the power under certain, not yet accurately determined, conditions of allowing the transudation of cholesterin in larger quantity than other substances; for it is not only in the above-mentioned cases of dropsy that we find accumulations of cholesterin; the choroid plexus of the brain, which secretes a fluid that is very poor in fibrin, is not unfre- quently found to be covered with an entire crust of minute plates of this lipoid; and how many analyses are there of the transudations into the peritoneum and pleura, in which the quantity of cholesterin has been noted as strikingly great! Indeed we might almost believe that the walls of the vessels possess a peculiar attractive power for the cholesterin, when we reflect on the atheromatous process which is so common in the arteries, if these accumulations of cholesterin cannot be more simply (even if not completely) explained by the circumstance that water, albu- minous substances, and salts, are more readily absorbed from the transuded fluid by the lymphatics, or some other means, than the choles- terin, or that by a process of partial absorption its solvent is taken up and removed, and that it is thus compelled to separate in a solid crystalline form in the cavity in which the transudation occurred. In a hydrocele-fluid, which formed a tolerably consistent pulp, I found 3-041g of pure cholesterin (amounting to 38-202° of the solid residue), and in another fluid of the same nature 1-569$; Simon,1 in a similar case, found 0*84$ of cholesterin, with a little olein and margarin. Serolin, which forms hexagonal or rhombic tablets, whose crystallo- metric determination has been given in the first volume, and which may be so readily distinguished from cholesterin and crystallizable fatty acids by its peculiar shape, always occurs with the cholesterin in the transu- dations, but seldom in any considerable quantity. Since Pettenkofer's discovery of his admirable test for the detection of the resinous acids of the bile, many chemists who have investigated morbid transudations have met with these substances in dropsical fluids ; and it was only to be expected that these substances, if they occurred in the blood, should also simultaneously pass into the transudations. In every case in which I have hitherto examined dropsical effusions de- pendent on affections of the liver, I have found in the alcoholic extract, if it has been previously extracted with ether, and usually also in the ether-extract, substances which gave the well-known reaction very dis- tinctly and rapidly, so that they could not be confounded with olein. In dropsy from heart-disease (without any secondary affection of the liver) or from Bright's disease, I never succeeded in detecting these biliary matters. On the other hand, I was much surprised to find unquestiona- ble traces of the resinous biliary acids, together with large quantities of cholesterin, in two cases of hydrocele, when neither by physical exami- 1 Medic. Chem. Bd. 2, S. 582 [or English translation, vol. 2, p. 495]. VOt. II. 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136300_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
