136 ON THE ELEMENTARY PARTS OF THE HUMAN FABRIC. 



other observers. These facts, therefore, afford strong ground for the belief, 

 that the production of Fibrine in the blood is closely connected with the de- 

 velopment of the Colourless corpuscles ; and when we consider them in con- 

 nection with the facts previously urged, there scarcely appears to be a rea- 

 sonable doubt that the elaboration of Fibrine is a consequence of this form of 

 cell-life, and is, in fact, its express object. 



159. This view derives further confirmation from the following recent 

 experiment of Mr. Addison's.* " Provide six or eight slips of glass, such as 

 are usually employed for mounting microscopical objects ; and as many 

 smaller pieces. Having drawn blood from a person with rheumatic fever, 

 or any other inflammatory disease, place a drop of the colourless liquor san- 

 guinis, before it fibrillates, on each of the large slips of glass ; cover one im- 

 mediately with one of the smaller slips, and the others one after another at 

 intervals of thirty or forty seconds: then, on examining them by the micro- 

 scope, the first will exhibit colourless blood-corpuscles in various conditions, 

 and numerous white molecules distributed through a more or less copious 

 fibrous network ; and the last will be a tough, coherent, and very elastic 

 membrane, which cannot be broken to pieces nor resolved into smaller frag- 

 ments, however roughly or strongly the two pieces of glass be made to rub 

 against each other. This is a ' glaring instance' of a compact, tough, elastic, 

 colourless, and fibrous tissue, forming from the colourless elements of the 

 blood ; and the several stages of its formation may be actually seen and 

 determined. Numerous corpuscles may be observed, in all these prepara- 

 tions, to have resolved themselves, or to have fallen down into a number of 

 minute molecules, which are spread out over a somewhat larger area than that 

 occupied by the entire corpuscles ; and although still retaining a more or less 

 perfectly circular outline, yet refracting the light at their edges, in a manner 

 very different from that in which the corpuscles themselves are seen to do. 

 It is from these and various other larger and more irregular masses of mole- 

 cules or disintegrated corpuscles, that the fibrinous filaments shoot out on all 

 sides, as from so many centres ; or frequently the filaments are more copious 

 in two opposite directions." 



a. A different vievv of the cause of the production of Fibrine, however, has been enter- 

 tained by some eminent Physiologists ; and it does not seem right to allow the opinions of 

 Wagner, Henle, and Wharton Jones to pass without notice, even though they appear to the 

 Author to be easily set aside. By these observers, the elaboration of Fibrine has been at- 

 tributed to the red corpuscles, and has been regarded as one, at least, of their special func- 

 tions. Nearly all the arguments, however, which have led us to assign this duty to the 

 Colourless corpuscles, tell equally against the doctrine now under consideration. In the first 

 place, the contents of the Red corpuscles have no resemblance whatever to liquid Fibrine; 

 but are characterized by the presence of a substance altogether different: whilst, as shown 

 above, the Colourless corpuscles emit, on bursting, a fibrillating matter. If, then, Fibrine be 

 elaborated l>y the Red corpuscles, it must be by forming part of their walls: a method alto- 

 gether unusual. Again, the entire absence of Red corpuscles in the blood of the lower 

 Invertebrata, and in that of the larva and pupa of the Insect, the small proportion in which 

 they are present in the blood of any Invertebrata, and their occurrence to any large amount 

 in the I ilc mil ui' Vrriebrata only, seem to show that they cannot be concerned in a function 

 so constant and essential as the elaboration of the plastic element. The number of the Red 

 corpuscles, as stated above, bears a regular proportion to the amount of oxygen introduced 

 into the system, and thus to the heat developed, and tti the activity of the Minimal functions; 

 but it docs not bear the .si me relation to the activity of the I'uriiMtivc processes, which take 

 place most energetically in a .state of functional quieseenee. Further, although the quantity 

 of Fibrine is so remarkably increased in Inflammation, the number of Red corpuscles under- 

 goes no decided change. Such an :iirjiiientation is even compatible with a Chlorotic state of 

 the blood; the peculiar characteristic of which is a great diminution in the proportion of Red 

 eurpuscles. By such alterations, the normal proportion between the Fibrine and the Red 

 corpuscles, which may be stated as A : 11, may be so much altered as to become, in Inllam- 



* Transactions of the Provincial Medical Association, 1843. 



