THE COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD 53 



may conceivably be of direct value in bringing about the 

 disappearance of intra-vascular blood-clots, such as are common 

 in disease. The observations of Dastre, 1 who attributes fibrino- 

 lysis to the action of a fibrinolytic enzyme, accord best with the 

 ascertained facts. Arthus and Huber 2 also confirm his state- 

 ment that bacteria are not essentially concerned in the process. 

 In experimental phosphorus poisoning not only may a firm clot 

 rapidly pass into solution in the serum, but, as Jakoby 3 has 

 shown, the serum in these cases possesses an intense fibrinolytic 

 action on normal blood-clot. 



Among the cardinal facts concerning blood when this liquid 

 is considered as a whole, the knowledge that the blood on 

 escaping from the body coagulates must be far more widely 

 spread than are some other points of equal interest, such as 

 the possession by the organism of a large excess of blood 

 beyond the amount which is actually required for the perform- 

 ance of its functions, and that when the body-cells die or are 

 diseased, as well as in a variety of conditions such as deprivation 

 of food or on the introduction of foreign material into the circu- 

 lation, the individual strives by every means in its power to 

 maintain the constituents of the blood at their normal, absolute, 

 and relative values. That the phenomenon of coagulation is a 

 protective one is sufficiently obvious. When blood coagulates 

 on the surface of or outside the body it is a normal process, just 

 as clotting within the vessels is pathological. Cells detached 

 from an organism may show instantaneous chemical and physical 

 changes which are variously interpreted as signs of commencing 

 death or signs of continuing life. In connection with this, recent 

 papers by Vernon 4 and Schryver 5 may be consulted ; and the 

 latter has shown that, at any rate in the case of intestinal 

 epithelial cells, disintegrative processes commence immediately 

 these are detached from the body. But from a morphological 

 point of view no cell or part of a cell detached from an organism 

 exhibits such a rapid change as that shown by dying blood, and 

 the rapidity of this change or rate of coagulation varies in 

 different animals, and in the same animal under different 



Comptes rend. xlv. p. 995 ; Arch, de Phys. xxv. p. 661, 1894. 



Arch, de Physiol, xxviii. p 857, 1896. 

 Zeitschrift f. phys. Chem. xxx. p. 174, 1900. 

 Journ. % of Phys. xxxv. p. 53, 1906 ; Zeits.f. allg. Phys. vi. 1906. 

 Biockem. Journal, vol. i. No. 3, 1906. 



