AJJDISON, ON BLOOD-CORPUSCLES. 171 



how impossible it is to judge by the eye of change of proper- 

 ties — of relative vigour or weakness, or even between life and 

 death. But generally, as respects the association of symptoms 

 of fever with some changed action in the red corpuscles, 

 peculiarities in the colour of the blood (which can have 

 arisen only from some change in the corpuscles) have been 

 observed upon by writers on epidemic fever in all parts of the 

 world. 



Fourthly, of the Liquor Sanguinis. — In the last paper 

 (p. 85) prominence was given to the fact that the elementary 

 particles, or cells of different organs, have peculiar suscepti- 

 bilities, whereby, of substances in solution in the liquor san- 

 guinis, some aftect specially one organ, others another organ. 

 Mercury, opium, prussiate of potass, and several saline and 

 vegetable solutions were brought forward as examples in 

 point. As it is with medicines and poisons, so also with un- 

 wholesome substances taken as food ; these, also, often have 

 a local sphere of disturbance. An unwholesome but full diet 

 occasions gout ; an unwholesome but deficient diet gives rise 

 to diarrhoea, dysentery, and scurvy. Gout, scurvy, and con- 

 tagious fever are all reputed blood-diseases. But how 

 diflFerent the phenomena ! Neither gout, nor scurvy, nor 

 diarrhoea, commence with symptoms of fever ; nor do they 

 entail the generation of a contagious virus. The explanation 

 is, that an unwholesome diet acts first upon the liquor san- 

 guinis. Substances taken as food impart their qualities to 

 the fluid of the blood, and affect some local part before dis- 

 turbing the normal action of the corpuscles of blood. 



But the corpuscles of blood are in contact with the liquor 

 sanguinis — they swim in it ; and, though exercising a measure 

 of resistance against injurious matter in solution in the fluid, 

 the resistance is but limited ; and when the limit has been 

 reached — when the special susceptibility of the corpuscles 

 becomes implicated — symptoms of fever appear. By thus 

 keeping in view the distinction between the fluid and cor- 

 puscles of blood, we can suggest a reason why symptoms 

 of fever supervene on disorders of diet — gout, scurvy, diarrhoea, 

 eruptions, &c. ; viz., because morbid qualities of the liquor 

 sanguinis, first proclaimed by local disease, may at length 

 affect the normal action of the corpuscles of the blood. 



Also, it enables us to understand why forms of inflam- 

 mation are superadded to fevers, viz., because the cor- 

 puscles of blood are excreting bodies, and morbid matter 

 thrown off from them must disturb the quality of the fluid 

 into which it passes, and altered qualities in the liquor san- 

 guinis are causes of local inflammation. 



