Oh the Action of the Blood. 115 



On treating the oils of the dolphin and the porpoise with al- 

 koliol, in the same manner as the oil of butter, he reduced them 

 to very different proportions. 1. Oleine. 2. A substance which 

 he calls phocenene, analogous to butyrene, but which may be dis- 

 tinguished from it, because instead of affording, like this, three 

 volatile acids, it yields only one, which he calls phocenic acid. 

 In a former paper, he described this acid under the name of del- 

 phinic acid. The discovery of stearine, oleine, butyric acid, and 

 the colouring principle, in butter, was announced to the Institute 

 on the 19th of September, 1814. — Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. 

 xxii. 366. 



13. Examination of the Blood and its action in the different pheno- 

 mena of Life. By J. L. Prevost, M.D., and J. A. Dumas. 



The microscopic observation of the blood satisfied us, as we 

 have previously shewn, that this liquid during life was nothing 

 else than the serum, holding in suspension small regular and in- 

 soluble corpuscles. We have seen that these were uniformly com- 

 posed of a central colourless spheroid, and of a species of mem- 

 branous bag, of a red colour, surrounding this spheroid, from, 

 which it was easily separable after death. The central body is 

 white, transparent, of a spherical form in animals with circular 

 particles ; of an ovoid form, in those with elliptical particles. Its 

 diameter is constant in the first, but it varies very perceptibly in 

 the second. It manifests also a great disposition to form aggre- 

 gates, or ranges, in the form of a string of beads. 



The coloured portion appears to be a kind of jelly easily divi- 

 sible, but insoluble in water, from which it may be always sepa- 

 rated by repose. It is likewise transparent, but much less so than 

 the central corpuscle ; and the fragments arising from its division 

 are not susceptible of regular aggregation. As the attraction which 

 keeps the red substance fixed round the red globules, ceases at the 

 same time with the movement of the liquid, they can then obey. 

 the force which tends to unite them, and to form a net-work in 

 whose meshes the liberated red colouring matter gets enclosed, as 

 well as a great quantity of the particles which escaped this spon- 

 taneous decomposition. This mass, known under the name of 

 clot, (cruor,) gradually allows to transude, as through a close fil- 

 ter, the liquid which it had imprisoned at the instant of its solidi- 

 fication, and sinks by reason of its weight. It suffers no other 

 change besides, as long as no alteration is made in its texture ; 

 but if it be torn, and exposed to the action of a stream of pure 

 water, this takes possession of the liberated colouring matter, 

 and of the untouched particles, while the aggregate formed by the 

 Avhite globules, remains on the linen cloth or the scarce, under the 

 form of filaments, in which the microscope recognises the aspect 



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