The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of PhysiologyHill, Alex
Science
The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of Physiology
Hill, Alex
Physiology
As the composition of lymph depends upon the source from which, and the
conditions under which, it has been obtained, it is unnecessary to
state the results of a chemical analysis. It suffices to say that lymph
contains all the substances which are present in the plasma of blood,
but not necessarily in the same total amount or in the same relative
proportions. Speaking generally, leucocytes are present in about the
same numbers as in blood—6,000 to 8,000 to the cubic centimetre;
but leucocytes are everywhere present: in blood, in the lymph, in
lymph-vessels, in the tissue-spaces. As they are not passively floating
bodies like red blood-corpuscles, but active migratory organisms,
they tend to accumulate in one situation and withdraw from another,
in accordance with the opportunities which the different localities
afford. They desert effused lymph, blisters, ascitic fluid, and the
like. They are not found in the lymph in the pericardium. There are
fewer in the lymph coming from the intestines after a meal than in the
same lymph during the intervals between meals. Their departure from
effused lymph might easily be explained. It is not so easy to account
for their comparative absence from the lymph in the lacteals when it
is heavily charged with fat and other products of digestion. Such
leucocytes as are present at this time are loaded with fat granules
which they have stolen from the chyle, as the lymph in the lacteals is
usually termed. One would need to be very intimate with a leucocyte
before one ventured to give reasons for all its movements. Lymph
contains the same proteid substances as blood, and in the same relative
proportions, but usually in smaller quantity.
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