180 BLOOD. 



ether, stoppages in the circulation of the web- membrane were 

 remarked, but instead of an accumulation of blood in the smaller 

 capillaries, many of them were perfectly devoid of coloured cells, 

 so that in some nothing but a few scattered colourless corpuscles 

 could be recognised ; no blood-corpuscles any longer passed from 

 the larger vessels into the apparently empty spaces ; the diameter 

 of the smaller capillaries was obviously so diminished that no red 

 blood-cells could any longer enter them, and those which had 

 been contained within them, streamed forth from their mouths, 

 which were distinctly visible ; no change could be observed in the 

 blood-corpuscles themselves. The blood of the larger vessels was 

 of a dark red colour, merging into violet ; its corpuscles during 

 the first few moments were normal and without a nucleus, but on 

 exposure to the air they soon became distorted and indistinct. 

 The lungs were usually (but not always) filled with air, and very 

 much expanded. It is perhaps deserving of mention that after 

 etherisation the muscles were always found in a highly relaxed 

 condition, while after the application of carbonic acid or alkaline 

 carbonates, there was constantly tonic spasm, and the muscles, 

 after death, were found (as has been already mentioned) in a 

 state of rigid contraction; if we regard this phenomenon as a 

 consequence of irritation or paralysis of the spinal nerves, we 

 should have observed paralysis of the vasomotor nerves of the web- 

 membrane in rigor of the muscles, and irritation of the vasomotor 

 nerves in paralysis of the spinal nerves. 



We should scarcely have described so fully, in this place, the 

 relations of the above-named substances in the blood of living 

 animals, if we had not wished at the same time to use these 

 experimental researches as a caution against the too hasty con- 

 clusions that have been drawn from the action of various chemical 

 substances on the blood-corpuscles and other elements of the 

 blood, with the view of elucidating pathological and pharmaco- 

 logical processes. If in the more recent and so called rational 

 pharmacology, we had guarded against such crude chemical 

 explanations, we should have avoided many errors, and kept clear 

 of many absurd physiological fictions. 



It is clear, from the preceding remarks, that many of those 

 substances which modify the form of the blood-corpuscles, at the 

 same time exert a chemical action on their walls; but whether 

 they and more especially the gases extend their action to the 

 contents of the blood-cells, and especially to the pigment, is a 

 question as yet by no means satisfactorily answered. To judge 



