244 BLOOD. 



a great augmentation of the fibrin as a diminution of the solid 

 constituents of the blood and of the serum, and the latter are often 

 far more diminished, than the fibrin is increased. Hence it is im- 

 possible to refer the augmentation of the fibrin in inflammation, 

 in a direct manner, to the diminution of the albumen, that is to say, 

 to explain the augmentation of the fibrin by a too early metamor- 

 phosis of the albumen into this substance, as some have attempted 

 to do. All that we are justified in asserting is this : in those 

 physiological and pathological conditions which are accompanied 

 by a greater or smaller augmentation of the fibrin, we are in the 

 habit of simultaneously observing a diminution of the coloured 

 blood-corpuscles, and a greater or less augmentation of the water 

 of the blood, but by no means always of that of the serum ; for, 

 to take an example, in acute articular rheumatism, a disease in 

 which the fibrin is often very much increased, \ve find, on the con- 

 trary, the quantity of water in the blood diminished, relatively to 

 the quantity of the solid constituents of the serum ; in hydrsemia 

 the quantity of water in the serum is extraordinarily increased, 

 while the fibrin scarcely exceeds the normal limits. 



We now proceed to the consideration of the albumen, of whose 

 occurrence and relations in the blood we have already treated 

 generally (see vol. i., p. 342). 



The amount of albumen in the serum generally rises and falls 

 with that of the other solid constituents ; unfortunately, however, 

 most investigations of the blood are limited to the mere determina- 

 tion of the solid residue of the serum, so that we have often no 

 means of determining the ratio in which the latter and the albumen 

 stand to each other : indeed no true conclusion can be drawn from 

 most analyses of morbid blood (previously to those of Scherer and 

 C. Schmidt), not merely because the mode of determining the 

 albumen was unsuitable, but also because we paid too little atten- 

 tion to, or were unable accurately to investigate, the relation of 

 the intercellular fluid to the blood-cells. In order to draw a 

 scientific conclusion from such investigations, it is by no means 

 sufficient to recognise an absolute or a relative augmentation or 

 diminution; it is a much more important point to determine 

 specially in relation to which constituents of the blood the 

 albumen has been increased or diminished; it is not till these 

 highly important relations are followed out in detail, that we can 

 arrive at any inductive conclusions regarding the nature of the 

 pathological changes. Such a general study of the quantitative 

 relations of the albumen in diseased blood^ is the means by which 



