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Zwo 3mportant Biolooical lEyperiment^* 



By Mrs. Alice Bodington. 



TWO series of successful experiments have been recorded 

 within the last six months in the British Medical Journal, 

 an account of which I venture to think will prove interest- 

 ing to the readers of this Journal. One bears directly on the 

 question of the action of the environment on protoplasm, an 

 action which appears likely to be reckoned as the governing law 

 in evolution, taking the supreme place which the law of gravitation 

 holds in physics. 



The series of experiments to which I wish first to call 

 attention have been carried out by Dr. Haycraft (Professor of 

 Physiology at the University of Edinburgh) and Dr. Freund, 

 each working independently. 



The object of the experiments was to ascertain, if possible, 

 the real cause of the rapid coagulation of the blood when drawn 

 from the body. Some mysterious energy, called " vital force," 

 was supposed, in the absence of any better hypothesis, to keep 

 the blood fluid in living veins. This explanation was felt, 

 however, to be as little truly explanatory in its nature as was the 

 celebrated definition of an archdeacon— as a person performing 

 " archidiaconal functions," and numberless efforts have been made 

 to discover the true solution of the problem. 



Under the ordinary conditions of healthy life the leucocytes 

 or white corpuscles of the blood float quietly in the general blood- 

 stream, living the life of parasites, to which air and food are 

 brought by the medium in which they are bathed. The behaviour 

 of these leucocytes, when any injury has happened to the tissues, 

 or foreign organisms threaten the body, is in itself a study of 

 absorbing interest, but one we cannot stop to consider now.* 

 When blood is drawn from a vein, what is known as coagulation 

 almost immediately sets in. The experiments of Dr. Haycraft 



* A brief account of the action of leucocytes in conditions of disease, etc., 

 will be found in the Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science, Vol. I., 

 New Series, p. 17, under the title of " Micro-organisms as Parasites." 



