312 TRANSUDATIONS. 



The fibrin occurring in transudations most frequently coagulates in 

 the form of those soft gelatinous masses which appear infiltrated 

 with serum, or to which we apply the name of pseudofibrin. We 

 know (see p. 199) that this form of coagulation is entirely depen- 

 dent on an excess of water in the fluid in which the fibrin was 

 previously suspended; and hence we should wonder why this 

 form of coagulation is not far more frequently found in the dead 

 body than is actually the case, if we did not know that the fibrin 

 is usually extremely slow in coagulating in the fluid which 

 transudes in the living body, and that in consequence of the con- 

 tinuous motion in the cavities of the pleura, the pericardium, and 

 the peritoneum, a flocculent coagulum somewhat resembling 

 whipped fibrin must be formed. Moreover, if we take a 

 chemical view of the subject, we cannot accept the idea of a 

 peculiar morbid fibrin ; the peculiar forms in which fibrin coagu- 

 lates in certain morbid processes, and which have led to this 

 assumption, are entirely dependent on the conditions under which 

 the coagulation of the fibrin takes place. However accurately we 

 observe the different forms of fibrin in the varieties of morbid 

 exudations, and however important may be the observations 

 regarding the capacity for organization or the disintegration of 

 one or other form of coagulation, that part of the exudation which 

 is actual fibrin is not to be distinguished in a chemical point of 

 view from the fibrin of the blood. Neither in croupous nor 

 aphthous, nor in any other fibrin eras exudation, have I even once 

 found a fibrin which in its microscopico-chemical or purely 

 chemical examination has proved to be essentially different from 

 the ordinary fibrin of the chemists ; amongst other things it may 

 be mentioned, that the one fibrin, like the other, was dissolved after 

 a longer or shorter digestion in a solution of nitre, into an 

 albuminous coagulable substance ; there was merely a difference 

 of the time in which the change was completely accomplished ; 

 and the time was generally almost in a direct proportion to the 

 coherence of the coagulated fibrin. (The exudation-fibrin was, 

 of course, not digested in a solution of nitre until the me- 

 chanically comminuted and washed exudation-coagulum no longer 

 contained a trace of any substance coagulable by boiling or by 

 acetic acid.) In many transudations, especially those in serous 

 membranes (in the fibrinous dropsies of Vogel), the fibrin is held 

 in solution, and does not coagulate till the fluid discharged by 

 paracentesis has been for some time exposed to the action of the 

 air; more than an hour often passes before coagulation takes 



