[Lymphatic system and water homeostasis].

Using the methods of light and electron microscopy as well as histochemistry, the complex study of structural-cellular state of the wall of small intestine and its grouped lymphoid nodules, mesenterial and iliac lymph nodes and thymus was performed in rats subjected to the changes of a type of drinking water. Tap, distilled and radon waters were used. The organism was found to respond to the changes in the type of drinking water by both non-specific (increase in sectional area of lymphatic vessels and the number of eosinophilic granulocytes in the wall of small intestine, in lymphoid nodule number containing germinal centers in lymph nodes, in proportion of thymus connective tissue component, increased lymphocyte dehydrogenase activity) and specific reactions, which were characteristic only to a given type of water. The latter, for example, included the activation of the function of protein synthesis in endothelial cells of lymphatic capillaries of the small intestine and increased numbers of plasma cells and dividing cells in lymphoid organs in rats consuming distilled water; increased proportion of blood capillaries in the wall of the small intestine, accompanied by the ultrastructural signs of reduction of plastic processes in them in animals drinking radon water. The response of the wall of the small intestine and lymphoid organs of an animal to the effect of drinking waters, different in their mineral content and radon concentrations, was subjected to general biological regularities and took place in two phases of an adaptation process, functional stress and resistivity.