ORGANIC PRINCIPLES. 81 



are absorbed and transformed into albumen. As albumen 

 exists in the lymph and chyle, it is probable that in these 

 fluids fibrin is produced in the same way as in the blood. 



A very important office of fibrin is to give coagula- 

 bility to the blood. This will be taken up more fully here- 

 after. At present we need only say that by virtue of this 

 property spontaneous arrest of hemorrhage after division or 

 rupture of small vessels is effected. In its natural liquid 

 condition, in intimate union with albumen and certain inor- 

 ganic matters which cannot be separated from it without 

 incineration, fibrin constitutes one of the two peculiar organic 

 principles of the plasma of the blood. It is brought in con- 

 tact with the tissues in the capillary vessels, and probably 

 takes part in the catalytic changes which constitute nutrition, 

 being transformed into the peculiar organic element of each 

 part. In this way it disappears forever as fibrin, and is only 

 discharged from the body after the tissue has undergone the 

 transformations which result in excrementitious products. 



Simon, Lehmann, Bernard, and others have noticed the 

 remarkable fact that the blood of the hepatic and renal veins 

 generally contains no fibrin. The liver and kidneys seem to 

 have the power of destroying this principle. Its transfor- 

 mations in these organs we have not been able to follow. 



Albumen. 



Albumen is found in the blood, lymph, chyle, intermus- 

 cular fluid, secretions of serous membranes, and in small 

 quantity in the milk. It is most abundant in the blood, 

 constituting the most important organic constituent of the 

 plasma. Its proportion has been estimated in the various 

 situations in which it is found, but, as in the case of fibrin, 

 this has been done after complete desiccation, and the results 

 thus obtained are far from representing the real quantities. 

 In some analyses designed to give the quantity of moist albu- 

 men in the blood, we have found a proportion in a healthy 

 specimen of 329*82 parts per 1000. The proportion will 

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