EXTRACTIVE MATTERS OF THE SERUM. 249 



It is scarcely necessary to remark, that on instituting a com- 

 parison of the whole blood (serum + blood-cells + fibrin), the 

 difference which these two kinds of blood present in their amount 

 of fat is far more obvious, because portal blood contains a pre- 

 ponderating quantity of serum, and the hepatic venous blood 

 a comparatively small quantity. The numbers representing the 

 relative amounts of fat are given in p. 88. 



The most careful investigations regarding the quantity of fat 

 contained in the serum in different diseases have been instituted 

 by Becquerel and Rodier ; from their researches it follows, that 

 almost from the beginning of every acute disease there is an 

 augmentation of the fats in the blood, and especially of the 

 cholesterin. In chronic diseases the fats and principally the 

 cholesterin are especially increased in hepatic affections, as, for 

 instance, icterus and cirrhosis, as well as in Bright's disease, 

 tuberculosis, and cholera. 



In the blood of animals the quantity of fat appears to be very 

 variable under apparently similar relations ; at all events, one and 

 the same observer (as, for instance, Nasse) has found very different 

 quantities of fat in the blood of the same species of animals. This 

 subject has been already noticed in vol. i., p. 249. 



Nasse* found the smallest quantity of fat in the blood of goats 

 and sheep, rather more in that of horses, and still more in that of 

 dogs : the blood of the pig, however, contained no more than that 

 of the dog. While the blood of puppies contained more fat than 

 that of adult dogs, the blood of calves, on the other hand, con- 

 tained less fat than that of oxen. 



Few chemists have extended their inquiries to the determina- 

 tion of the quantity of the extractive matters contained in the 

 serum ; at all events, they are always determined in association 

 with the salts ; the number representing them might certainly be 

 calculated from many analyses, if we did not fear, on the one hand, 

 by including the loss incurred in the entire process, to obtain too 

 high a number, or on the other hand, by imperfect drying, to get 

 by far too low a number. But even when the quantity of the 

 extractive matters has been directly determined, I find from my 

 own investigations, and those of others, that their number is liable 

 to great fluctuations, ranging from 0'25 to 0'42. When we con- 

 sider how many things are vaguely included in extractive matters, 

 and how these latter are augmented by the products both of pro- 



* Joura. f. prakt. Ch. Bd. 18, S. 146. 



