236 BLOOD. 



ing more salts than those of ordinary venous blood. The relation 

 between the cells of the portal vein and those of the hepatic veins 

 is still more striking ; for although the serum of the portal blood 

 is far richer in salts than that of hepatic venous blood, the dif- 

 ference in the amount of salts in the cells of the two kinds of 

 blood is still more strongly marked. 



This excess of saline contents in the arterial blood-cells can 

 only be explained by the loss of other substances, as, for instance, 

 fat and perhaps also extractive substances, which are lost by the 

 venous cells in their passage through the capillaries of the lungs ; 

 this increase of the salts during the arterialization of the blood- 

 cells is, therefore, probably only a relative one. The case is 

 wholly different with respect to the saline contents of the cells of 

 the blood flowing to and from the liver. If, as would seem 

 probable from our investigations on the subject, new corpuscles 

 are actually formed in the liver, it follows from this fact that the 

 younger blood-corpuscles contain more salts and less haematin 

 than the older cells of the blood of other vessels, and that a 

 certain quantity of salts passes from the serum of the portal vein 

 into the blood-cells of the hepatic veins. This increase of salts in 

 the cells of the blood of the hepatic veins is principally limited to 

 phosphates and chlorides, as I constantly found in three compara- 

 tive investigations. In 100 parts of fresh blood-cells of the 

 portal blood I found, on an average, 0-1593 of chlorine and 

 0*0578 of phosphoric acid in combination with alkalies; while 

 100 parts of cells from the hepatic veins contained 0*1796 of the 

 former and 0*0611 of the latter. 



Schmidt's investigations on the constitution of the blood 

 during excessive transudative processes have thrown considerable 

 light on this subject, and shown the differences manifested in the 

 quantity of salts contained in the blood-cells. In cholera^ where 

 the blood loses large quantities of salts in addition to water, 

 the blood-corpuscles are also implicated. The intercellular fluid 

 especially loses large quantities of water and chloride of sodium ; 

 and this fluid, reacting on the blood-cells, abstracts not only a por- 

 tion of their water, but also a portion of their salts. As the potash 

 compounds and the phosphates predominate in the blood-cells, 

 it is these salts which chiefly escape into the plasma; consequently 

 these compounds are more abundant in the serum in cholera 

 than in a state of health. Hence in cholera, the blood-corpuscles 

 become relatively richer in solid organic matters, while they 

 lose a portion of their soluble salts. Schmidt found that in the 



