On the chemical analysis of the contents of the thoracic duct in the human subject / [George Owen Rees].

  • George Owen Rees
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the chemical analysis of the contents of the thoracic duct in the human subject / [George Owen Rees]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Water 90'48 Albumen with traces of fibrinous matter 7'08 Aqueous extractive 0*56 Alcoholic extractive, or Osmazome 0'52 Alkaline chloride, carbonate, and sulphate, with traces of alkaline 1 Fatty matters 0*92 The fatty matters extracted in this analysis possessed, for the most part, the same characters as those of the blood, being separable by boiling in alcohol, and subse- quent cooling, into a crystalline fat, which was deposited as the alcohol became cool, and an oily matter which was completely soluble in cold alcohol; these fats differed, however, from those of the blood in not containing phosphorus, which was proved by their yielding an alkaline, instead of an acid ash on incineration. The albuminous matter was not of the dead white colour observed in that obtained from pure chyle, owing, doubtless, to the contents of the thoracic duct containing a considerable pro- portion of lymph. On incinerating this albumen, an ash was obtained, containing phosphate of lime and traces of oxide of iron. The whole of the spontaneously coagulable albumen or fibrin*, which presented itself as clot in part of this chyle, is estimated as albuminous matter in this analysis, as it was found quite impossible to separate it without considerable loss, and the coagulum was very slight and broke down very rapidly. The aqueous and alcoholic extractives mentioned in this analysis agreed in most respects in chemical characters with those obtained from the blood, with the excep- tion that the aqueous extractive yielded a ferruginous ash, which is never the case with that principle as procured from the blood. I have ascertained by experiment that pure chyle obtained from the lacteals of the Ass yields an aqueous extractive containing iron; it is, therefore, to the chyle and not to the lymph that we owe this property of the aqueous extractive. The salts, obtained by incineration from the alcoholic extractive, yielded a larger proportion of alkaline carbonate than is obtained from the blood, indicating a larger proportion of an alkaline lactate in the contents of the thoracic duct. I have alluded to the dead white colour of the albuminous matter obtained from pure chyle, and stated that the admixture of lymph in the contents of the thoracic duct interfered with its developement in the albumen obtained from the fluid the examination of which I have detailed. Some months ago I had an opportunity of tracing this effect to its true cause, namely the presence, in the chyle, of an opake white organic matter identical with a substance existing as a constituent of the saliva, and which appears to act an important part in the process of nutrition. I have obtained this animal substance on a former occasion in consider- i * I have thought it right to apply to fibrin the term spontaneously coagulable albumen, the recent obser- vations of Liebig and others having shown it to be chemically identical with albumen. M 2