602 [June 11, 



poured blood into it from the jugular vein of an ox. I wished to 

 compare the condition of blood which had been simply poured into a 

 tube, with blood which had been introduced without any disturbance 

 of its central parts. But in order to make the experiment a fair one, 

 as it might be said that the blood poured from the vein had been 

 more exposed to the air than that into which the tube was slipped, I 

 proceeded in the following way : I obtained a long vein containing 

 plenty of blood, and having first filled the second tube, with the gutta- 

 percha bottom (fig. 6 d), by simply pouring blood into it from the 

 vein, I cut off a portion of the vein which had been thus emptied, 

 and having tied one end and everted the lining membrane of the 

 other end, and having also everted the lining membrane of the orifice 

 of the remainder of the vessel which was full, I poured the blood 

 from the full portion through the air into the empty part. In doing 

 this I had difficulty in getting blood enough, and it passed through 

 the air in slow drops, and that only when the vein was squeezed by 

 my warm hand. At last, having introduced sufficient for the pur- 

 pose, I slipped down the compound tube and bent its gutta-percha 

 portion, as represented in fig. 6 c, and left both tubes for a while 

 undisturbed. At the end of three hours and a half I found that the 

 blood which had been simply poured in was a mass of clot, and fluid 

 squeezed from it yielded no threads of fibrin, coagulation being com- 

 plete. How long it had been so I do not know. I did not examine 

 the other blood until seven hours and three quarters had expired, 

 and then found that, just as in the cases where a simple glass tube 

 was introduced, the clot was tubular, and the chief part of the blood 

 was still fluid in its interior, the only difference being that in this 

 case the clot formed a complete capsule, being continued over the 

 gutta percha instead of being deficient below, as it was when the 

 vein closed the end of the tube. Now if we consider the two parts 

 of this comparative experiment, we see that the receptacles in 

 which the blood was ultimately contained were precisely similar in 

 the two cases, viz. glass tubes closed below with gutta percha ; 

 and that the blood which was simply poured into the tube was 

 much less exposed to the air than the other, and also was not sub- 

 jected, like it, to elevation of temperature, a circumstance which pro- 

 motes coagulation ; but yet this blood became completely coagulated 

 jn a comparatively short time, whereas the other after a much 



