536 OF ABSORPTION AND SANGUIFICATION. 



to the alterations which take place in the proportions of the Organic elements 

 of tfie fluid. Another series of researches of great value, and in almost every 

 point confirmatory of the preceding, has been since made by MM. Becquerel 

 and Rodier;* and another by Dr. Karl Popp.t Numerous other less systematic 

 analyses have been made by various Chemists and Pathologists. The follow- 

 ing outline contains the general results of these. It is, of course, necessary to 

 determine, in the first instance, what are the usual or normal proportions; and 

 the following may be estimated as the ordinary quantity of each element, in 

 1000 parts of healthy Blood: 



Fibrine from 2 to 3^ 



Corpuscles 110 ' 150 



Solid matter of Serum . . . . " 72 " 85 



707. Before entering upon the consideration of the alterations in the Blood, 

 which are effected by particular morbid states, it is requisite to notice the 

 results of two extraneous causes, usually operating in disease, which may affect 

 the proportions of its components. These are, Abstinence from food, and 

 Loss of Blood, as by Hemorrhage or Venesection. It has been commonly 

 supposed, that these causes have a tendency to diminish the proportion of all 

 the solid elements of the blood; but this is not the case; for they affect the 

 Corpuscles, chiefly or exclusively, the quantity of Fibrine and of the solids of 

 the Serum remaining nearly the same, unless the abstinence has been pro- 

 longed, or the loss of blood very considerable. It is probably to the effects 

 of abstinence, that we are to attribute the general diminution of the solids of 

 the blood, which presents itself ii} most acute diseases; thus, on the average 

 of 120 cases, MM. Becquerel and Rodier found the average Specific Gravity 

 of defibrinated blood reduced from 1060 (in Men) and 1057'5 (in Women), to 

 1056 (in Men), and 1055 (in Women). The diminution in the proportion of 

 Corpuscles was well marked; that of the Albumen was much slighter; there 

 was on the whole a slight augmentation of Cholesterine and Phosphorized 

 Fat; and a marked increase in the Phosphates. The increase or diminution 

 of the Fibrine is entirely dependent (as we shall presently see) on the nature 

 of the disease. The influence of Venesection in impoverishing the blood is 

 well shown in the following table of the mean composition of the fluid, at three 

 successive Venesections in ten persons : 



First Second Third 



Bleeding. Bleeding. Bleeding. 

 Specific Gravity of defibrinated 



Blood 1056 1053 1049-6 



Water 793 807-7 823-1 



Fibrine 3-5 3-8 3-4 



Corpuscles 129-2 11O3 99-2 



Albumen .... 65-0 63'7 64-f. 

 Extractive, free salts, and fatty 



matters 9'4 S'5 9-5 



Thus we see that repeated venesections render the blood more watery; but 

 this, chiefly by the diminution they produce in the amount of Corpuscles. 

 They slightly diminish the albumen and fatty matters; but they exert no per- 

 ceptible influence on the amount of Fibrine; a point of the highest practical 

 importance. 



a. The most important fact substantiated hy Andral, is one that had been previously sus- 

 pected, the invariable increase in the quantity of Fibrine during acute Inflammatory all'ec- 

 tions; the increase being strictly proportional to the intensity of the Inflammation, and to the 



in a separate form, under (lie title of "Essai d'Hematologie Pathologique.'' [See Transla- 

 tion by Drs. Meigs and Stillo, Phil. 1844.] 



* Gazette Medicalc, 1844, Nos. 47 57. -j- Banking's Abstract, vol. iii. p. 306. 



