ALBUMINOUS COMPOUNDS. 63 



trated by fresh blood conveyed in vessels that extend themselves into it, gradu- 

 ally passes into a state of more complete organization, and is at last developed 

 into the condition of a living tissue. It is an obvious error, therefore, to speak 

 of the act of coagulation as an indication of the death of the Fibrin, since it is 

 only so when the isolation of the substance prevents its vital force, which has 

 been thus expended, from being renewed ; whilst, on the other hand, when the 

 coagulation takes place under more favorable circumstances, it is simply the 

 transition-stage between the existence of the fibrin in the liquid state and its 

 existence as a part of the solid fabric, and must thus be regarded as a stage in its 

 progress towards complete organization. We are scarcely warranted, however, 

 in hence inferring that Fibrin is the pabulum, at the expense of which all the 

 tissues are nourished. A very marked chemical line of distinction seems to 

 separate the simply fibrous from the proper cellular tissues, for the former are 

 gelatinous in their composition, whilst the latter are albuminous; and it has 

 been recently asserted by Prof. Liebig, that fibrin, considered chemically, is in 

 some respects intermediate between these two classes of compounds. 1 Further, 

 it appears from Mr. Paget's observations on inflammatory effusions, 3 that the 

 development of cells and the production of fibres do not take place with equal 

 readiness in the same effusion ; but that the condition of the plastic fluid which 

 is favorable to the one, is unfavorable to the other. It may be surmised, 

 then, that the peculiar vital powers with which the fibrin is endowed, give it a 

 special tendency to development into tissues of the fibro-gelatinous type, which 

 may thus be almost said to be pre-formed in the blood ; whilst the tissues of the 

 cellulo-albuminous type develop themselves at the expense of some other element 

 of the blood, possibly the globulin of the floating corpuscles. But nothing cer- 

 tain can be stated on this subject. 3 



30. The prolonged action of boiling water, with free access of air, upon Albu- 



1 Prof. Liebig speaks of the fibrin of blood as "perhaps albumen half converted into 

 gelatin." "Familiar Letters," p. 40. 



2 See his " Lectures on Inflammation," in the " Medical Gazette," 1850, vol. xlv. p. 

 1012. 



3 It might be thought that some notice is here required of the hypothesis put forth by Dr. 

 Zimmermann, and espoused by Mr. Simon and some other pathologists in this country, that 

 the Fibrin of the blood is one of those elements of the circulating fluid " which have arisen 

 in it from its own decay, or have reverted to it from the waste of the tissues," instead of 

 being, as represented above, " that ingredient of the blood, which, in the ascending scale 

 of development, stands next for appropriation into the living textures of the body, and 

 which represents the ripeness and perfection and nutritiveness of the blood." [The fol- 

 lowing are the arguments by which Mr. Simon supports this hypothesis : First, I find 

 that fibrin is undiminished by bleeding, however frequently repeated ; nay, that it often, 

 or even usually increases under this debilitating treatment ; its highest figure given in 

 Andral's book (10.2) was at a fourth bleeding ; and Scherer found it as high as 12.7 at 

 the third venesection in a case of pneumonia. I find that under many other circumstances 

 of exhaustion and weakness and inanition, during the progress of starvation, 1 during dis- 

 eases essentially anaemic, during violent fatigue, and the like, its proportion has been 

 found at least as high, perhaps higher, than in the inflammatory process. And as in these 

 respects I find its proceeding to be in direct contrast to that of the red-globules (which 

 we know to be potential elements in the blood, and which are at once reduced by bleeding 

 or starvation) so also do I find a similar contrast in another striking particular. Messrs. 

 Andral and Gavarret, in the course of their extensive researches in the comparative phy- 

 siology of the blood, ascertained that an improvement in the breed of an animal tended 

 always (cceteris paribus] to increase the proportion of its colored blood-corpuscles ; they 

 found that the same improvement tended likewise to diminish the proportion of its fibrin. 

 And I find further indications of the same inverse ratio between the fibrinousness and the 

 perfection of the blood, in the facts that there is little or no fibrin in the blood of the 



1 In analyzing the blood of seventeen healthy horses, Andral and Gavarret found the maximum of fibrin to 

 be 5 per 1000 ; the minimum to be 3 ; the mean to be 4. In dealing with diseased horses, many of them 

 meagre and half-starved, Dr. Franz Simon found this proportion increased to 11 or 12 per 1000. In one ewe, 

 particularly of experimental starvation of a horse, after four days' total abstinence, this observer found that 

 the animal's proportion of fibrin had risen from 5 to 9. 



