Abstract
Gage 1 has called attention to the fact that following a fatty meal the blood is loaded with minute fat droplets which persist for a time and then disappear. Ludlum, Taft and Nugent 2 have made some studies on these particles and think that they are neutral fat droplets, stabilized by blood proteins. They think, therefore, that the counting of these particles gives a fair index of the fat content of blood. Bloor 3 has shown that these chylomicrons are increased in a diabetic dog. Several other clinical conditions have also been reported. It was thought that it would be interesting to examine blood of fasting diabetic patients and make counts, comparing these with normal fasting blood.
The chylomicrons were counted by Gage, and Ludlum, Taft and Nugent by noting the number of particles in a given area viewed through the micrometer eyepiece ruling while the slide was illuminated with a dark field condenser. In attempting to carry out this count, using a Zeiss cardioid condensor with an arc light, difficulties were encountered which are not mentioned by Gage, or Ludlum, Taft and Nugent.
Under brilliant illumination there were, indeed, the bright moving particles as described by these authors. These particles were not all of the same size. Some particles were about 0.1 micron in size and exhibited a slow Brownian movement. In addition to these, however, there were swarms of particles which graded slowly into invisibility. The most minute of these exhibited very rapid Brownian movements. It was as impossible to count these as to count gnats in a swarm. The number of these smaller particles depends greatly upon the intensity of illumination. Clearly, the count of such a mixture of large and small particles is a very inaccurate thing.
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