136 EXUDATIONS. 



result. I have met with no single plastic exudation (I refer to 

 those only which I examined under the microscope) which did not 

 exhibit a larger or smaller amount of strongly tinged, unaltered, 

 or pale, rounded blood-corpuscles. As, moreover, the blood- 

 corpuscles never continue to be developed in a plastic exudation, 

 but, on the contrary, seem rather to disappear, the proximate 

 cause of this excess of phosphates and potash-salts might there- 

 fore be sought in the disintegration of the blood-cells contained in 

 the exudation ; for we know that it is the blood-cells principally 

 which contain the phosphates and potash-salts (see vol. ii, p. 189). 

 In point of fact, a comparison between my different analyses will 

 show that the exudations which contained a large amount of blood- 

 cells exhibited a greater proportion of these salts than those which 

 were poorer in blood-cells. The observations made by different 

 physiologists on the relations between the capillaries and the blood 

 contained in them during the inflammatory process lead us to 

 expect that blood-corpuscles will always be present in exudations. 

 Although the constant occurrence of blood-corpuscles in the true 

 plastic exudations, as noticed in the bodies of men or animals after 

 death, would seem to favour the conclusion that the plasticity of 

 the exudations depends principally on the quantity of blood- 

 corpuscles which they contain, such a view is controverted by the 

 fact that exudations which are very rich in blood are not in general 

 the most plastic ; and that, as we have already seen, when con- 

 sidering the secretions from wounds, an exudation may be plastic 

 without containing blood-cells. If, therefore, we cannot assert 

 that the blood-cells, as such, together with the fibrin, are the direct 

 cause of the plasticity of the exudations, they at all events appear, 

 from the above-mentioned positive observations, to stand in some 

 indirect relation to the plasticity. For where are we to seek 

 for the source of the excess of potash-salts and phosphates which 

 is constantly present in the plastic exudations, if not in the blood- 

 corpuscles ? Even in those wound-secretions, in which we can 

 find no blood-cells, we must refer these salts to blood-corpuscles 

 which have passed into a condition of stasis and solution in the 

 capillaries surrounding the focus of exudation. The phosphates 

 and potash-salts originating from the remains of the blood-cells 

 must therefore penetrate through the walls of the inflamed capil- 

 laries, and thus contribute towards the plasticity of an exudation 

 containing no blood-corpuscles. This at the same time explains 

 the cause why the transudations, even when they contain fibrin 

 and some blood-corpuscles, are not plastic, for the separation of 



