82 THE SECRETIONS : 



together with white vesicles, eight or ten times the size of blood- 

 corpuscles, which contain only a few, and, in some cases, no gra- 

 nular molecules; these are represented in fig. 16, c, d. Between the 

 sixth and tenth days the lochial discharge becomeswhite,and con- 

 tains white round vesicles, with finely granular contents, but de- 

 void of a central cell, or the larger molecules. (Fig. 16, e, f, g.) 



Gruby has shown that the mucus discharged by stool at the 

 commencement of dysentery is clear and stringy, and scarcely 

 different from the mucus secreted in simple diarrhoea, but as 

 the disease becomes more severe, there is a secretion of thick 

 red mucus, consisting of blood- and mucus-corpuscles, resem- 

 bling the ordinary secretion of inflamed mucous membranes. 



I have observed that the mucus secreted during inflam- 

 matory affections of the mucous membrane of the respiratory 

 organs is thick, rounded in form, of a white or pale yellow 

 colour, and floats on water. These clots of mucus remain un- 

 broken for a considerable time, but ultimately break up, and 

 sink to the bottom : they then spread out into long tough fibres, 

 which, when observed with the naked eye, have an uniform non- 

 granular appearance : they possess a certain degree of con- 

 sistency, and feel slippery, in consequence of the mucin which 

 connects the mucus-corpuscles ; they are consequently not very 

 easily fixed and broken up by pressure against the sides of the 

 vessel with a glass rod. When examined with the microscope, 

 the white masses of mucus are found to consist of a large num- 

 ber of mucus-corpuscles, and a few epithelium-scales, connected 

 by a delicate granular membrane of coagulated mucin : the yel- 

 low clots contain, in proportion to the intensity of their colour, 

 a greater or smaller quantity of the large cells with granular 

 contents, (fig. 16, ,) in some of which a central cell is visible, 

 while in others no cell can be seen. The fluid in which the 

 thick clots of mucus are swimming is slightly clouded by acetic 

 acid, but rendered very turbid by nitric acid : on the applica- 

 tion of heat, it becomes white and opalescent ; and infusion of 

 galls, and basic acetate of lead yield tolerably copious flocculent 

 precipitates ; there is, consequently, a greater quantity of dis- 

 solved mucin and albumen present than the water would have 

 extracted from healthy mucus. A quantitative analysis of these 

 floating clots, after being well washed in distilled water, gave 

 the following results. 



