011 the Blood of Cholera Patieiits. 305 



deficiency, but in reality occasioning an excess,) may not only 

 be not beneficial, but positively injurious. It is not improbable, 

 that since so great a uniformity exists in the amount of saline 

 ingredients in every variety of serous fluid, this quantity in the 

 serum of blood may be essential to the due discharge of the 

 functions of that fluid. An accurate examination of the blood 

 in sea-scurvy might thrown light on this obscure subject ; for 

 either the exhibition of saline remedies is an absurdity, or the 

 serum of a scurvy patient is overcharged with salts. In dropsy 

 the blood is drained of a fluid containing a much larger quan- 

 tity of salts than the cholera evacuations (if the experiments of 

 Dr. O'Shaughnessy on the latter be exact); — yet who will pre- 

 tend to discover in such patients or in their blood any of those 

 marvellous effects which have been attributed to the absence of 

 these matters ? The evacuations in cholera, containing little 

 more than half the saline matter of the serum, ought to increase 

 instead of diminishing its saline contents : but I do not doubt 

 that if these evacuations could be obtained in the same state 

 in which they are separated from the serum, and unmixed with 

 other fluids, they would contain nearly the same proportion 

 of salts which is found in it. There is one circumstance in- 

 deed which renders it improbable that even if a deficiency of 

 salts could occur, it would produce any very injurious effect : 

 the serum of a bullock, resembling in every other respect 

 that of man, contains (according to Berzelius) less than half 

 its saline ingredients ; yet it is neither darker nor more diffi- 

 cult of arterialization. But we must not hence draw a hasty 

 conclusion, that either a deficiency or excess of salts in the 

 blood would be harmless. 



The following are the general conclusions that appear to 

 follow from these researches. 



That the only difference between the blood of cholera and 

 of health consists in a deficiency of water in the serum, and a 

 consequent excess of albumen. 



That the saline ingredients of the serum are the same as in 

 healthy blood. 



That the red globules, and probably the fibrin also, are 

 normal. 



That the want of fluidity in the blood, the darkness of its 

 colour, and the bulk of the crassamentum, are simple effects 

 of the increased viscidity of the serum. 



I am at present engaged in further researches connected 

 with this subject ; but conceiving these results to be of some 

 immediate interest, I have been induced to publish them in 

 this detached state. 



Third Serin. Vol. 1. No. 4. Oct. 183'2. 2 R 



