SPONTANEOUS ARREST OF HEMORRHAGE. 153 



bodies ; the corpuscles cease to be organized anatomical 

 elements capable of self-regeneration, break down, and are 

 absorbed. The fibrin which remains undergoes the same 

 process ; the stages through which it passes being always 

 those of decay, and not of development. In other words, it 

 is incapable of organization. 



Office of the Coagulation of the Blood in Arresting 

 Hemorrhage. The property of the blood under consideration 

 has a most important office in the arrest of hemorrhage. 

 The effect of an absence or great diminution of the coagu- 

 lability of the circulating fluid is exemplified in instances 

 of what is called the hemorrhagic diathesis ; a condition in 

 which slight wounds are apt to be followed by alarming, 

 and it may be fatal, hemorrhage. This condition of the 

 blood is not characterized by any symptoms excepting the 

 obstinate flow of blood from slight wounds, and may con- 

 tinue for years. In a case which came under the observation 

 of the author a few years since, excision of the tonsils was 

 followed by bleeding, which continued for several days, and 

 was arrested with great difficulty. On inquiry it was 

 ascertained that the patient, a young man about twenty 

 years of age, in other respects perfectly healthy, had been 

 subject from early life to persistent hemorrhage from slight 

 wounds. In reviewing the functions of fibrin, we find that 

 apparently its most important office is in the arrest of hem- 

 orrhage. The degree of coagulability of the blood depends 

 on the quantity of fibrin, but its proportion has not been 

 shown to bear any definite relation to the vigor of the indi- 

 vidual, nor to the processes of nutrition generally. The 

 necessary and constant variations in the organic elements of 

 the blood, which are the result of insufficient alimentation, 

 exhausting discharges, or diseases characterized by impover- 

 ishment of this fluid, are observed in the albumen and red 

 corpuscles, and not in the fibrin. By this it must not be 

 understood that the quantity of fibrin is not variable. It has 



