ALKALINITY OF THE BLOOD. 229 



a neutral and a basic compound, according as we calculate its atomic 

 weight. We have already described, under the head of Albumen 

 (vol. i, p. 334), and under that of Blood (vol. ii. p. 208), the re- 

 actions which show that the blood-serum contains two albuminates 

 of soda, one of which is rich and the other poor in alkalies, and 

 that these are mixed together in variable proportions ; it is only 

 in diseases that free albumen, held in solution solely by the salts of 

 the serum, can be obtained. This relation even might of itself 

 aid us in conjecturing the effects of the alkali, or in other words, 

 the purpose it accomplishes in the blood. The somewhat lax com- 

 bination between soda and albumen will always be disposed to 

 give off the alkali, as soon as acids are formed in the blood, or 

 are conveyed to it from other parts of the body. The provision 

 by which the blood is surrounded by acid fluids, and which enables 

 it to expend a portion of its alkali in destroying the acids without 

 by that means losing its alkaline character, is one which demands 

 our fullest consideration ; this alkalinity of the liquor sanguinis 

 would, however, very rapidly be destroyed, owing to the abundant 

 supply of acid fluids, and the great tendency of the latter to be 

 converted into alkaline and neutral fluids, if the newly formed salts 

 were riot readily and quickly decomposed into carbonates, and in 

 part also were removed unchanged from the blood. 



The following seem to be the only considerations which are 

 able to assist us in determining the causes which maintain the 

 alkalinity of the blood at a tolerably constant degree, and the ob- 

 jects which are effected by this constancy. We need not here seek 

 for any complicated modes of explanation, for the question to be 

 determined is simply this : what effect will the alkali necessarily 

 exert on organic bodies under the relations prevailing in the living 

 blood ? As far as these relations are known to us, it would appear 

 that the one which especially claims our attention is the simultane- 

 ous presence of oxygen. The first principles of chemistry teach us 

 that the tendency of oxygen to combine with certain elements is 

 extraordinarily strengthened by the presence of alkalies, but it is 

 scarcely necessary to enter more fully into the chemical laws and 

 experiments which refer to this subject, and which have been 

 already considered in various parts of this work. We will, there- 

 fore, limit ourselves to a brief notice of the most important 

 experiments, which show the necessity that the collective organic 

 constituents of the blood should be subjected to a process of gra- 

 dual oxidation by the simultaneous presence of oxygen and loosely 

 combined alkalies in the blood. The oxidation thus gradually 



