Dr. Spurgin on the Nature and Properties of the Blood. 1 99 



cing a piece of zinc or tin. This in the case of steam boats, 

 particularly when salt water is used, may be of the greatest 

 advantage, and prevent the danger of explosion, which gene- 

 rally arises from the wear of one part of the boiler. 



Another application of importance which may be made, is 

 the prevention of the wear of the paddles or wheels, which 

 are rapidly dissolved by salt water. 



But I will conclude. Whenever a principle or discovery 

 involves or unfolds a law of nature, its applications are almost 

 inexhaustible; and however abstracted it may appear, it is 

 sooner or later employed for common purposes of the arts and 

 the common uses of life. 



XLI. Outli7ies of a Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature and 

 Properties of the Blood; being the Substance of three Lectures 

 on that Subject delivered at the Gresham Institution during 

 Michaelmas Term 1826. By John Spurgin, M.D. Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and of the 

 Cambridge Philosophical Society*. 



THE plan pursued in these Lectures, in regard to the mode 

 and style of their composition, being intended rather for 

 the ^reneral class of intelligent hearers, than for the medical 

 profession exclusively, it may readily be conceived that a 

 departure from what might be termed the usual method ot 

 treatino- a physiological subject like that of the blood, was 

 almost°unavoidable, at the same time that it might be deemed 

 in some degree justifiable. The philosophical and abstract 

 reasonino- upon the nature and properties of this fluid, di- 

 rected and limited as it is, by the facts, the observations, and 

 the experiments which are adduced concerning it, will not, it 

 is hoped, be thought unworthy of attention, or destitute of 

 interest and utility. 



To confine the Lectures to a bare enumeration ot tacts, to 

 the exclusion of all reasoning, was not so much the object in 

 their composition, as to draw conclusions from them, that 

 might lead to further inquiry on the same subject ; at the same 

 time that they interested the hearers; and as the Lectures 

 were not drawn up with any view to publication in their 

 present shape, they may perhaps be entitled to indulgence 

 for the novelty of the method adopted, in the investigation ot 

 this important part of the Animal Economy. 



To enter upon a course of investigation into the economy 

 of the animal kingdom, or in other words, to bring the 



» Communicated by the Author. 



human 



