THEIR EXTRACTIVE MATTERS. 319 



tion of the blood in the abdominal vessels, the blood at the same 

 time being highly albuminous, we find more albumen (as in hepatic 

 affections, heart-diseases, &c.) than in that variety which originates 

 in hydrsemic blood (as in B right's disease, cancer, pulmonary 

 tuberculosis, or after copious losses of the juices, &c.) 



In considering the transudations, we must not overlook a 

 circumstance to which we have elsewhere drawn attention, namely, 

 that when the transudatians stagnate for a prolonged period in a 

 serous cavity, without being either resorbed or artificially removed, 

 as is most frequently the case in hydrocele, ovarian dropsy, and 

 other dropsical fluids contained in closed cavities, the aqueous and 

 some portion of the saline parts are in general again absorbed, so 

 that the fluid, on examination, appears to be far more concen- 

 trated, and richer in albumen, than is in general the case with such 

 transudations. 



Even if we cannot anticipate that these propositions can be 

 fully established in science until they have been confirmed by 

 further and more systematically conducted investigations, they 

 yet promise to throw some light on this obscure department of 

 pathological chemistry, and to aid in associating into one distinct 

 scientific whole those disjointed facts which have been concealed 

 amidst a mass of imaginary erases arid other chimeras of the same 

 nature. Perhaps we may not be too sanguine, if we look forward 

 to a period in the history of pathology, when these three factors 

 shall yield results from which we may establish a numerical 

 equation which shall express the pathologico-physical process of 

 the transudation. 



Although the chemical investigations of the transudations afford 

 us some prospect of a nearer recognition of the mechanical inter- 

 change of matter in the healthy and the diseased animal body, they 

 leave us wholly in the dark as to the chemical metamorphoses 

 which these substances undergo during and after their transuda- 

 tion. This is especially the case in reference to those substances 

 which are concealed amongst the extractive matters; as for instance, 

 the protein -oxides, pyin, and other matters which probably belong 

 to regressive metamorphosis. These extractive matters consist to 

 a great extent of a substance which is soluble in water, but inso- 

 luble in alcohol, and which may be precipitated by basic acetate 

 of lead. It resembles Mulder's tritoxide of protein, but exhibits 

 a different composition when it is present in sufficient quantity 

 to be submitted to an elementary analysis. The same is the case 

 with the substance which is precipitable by acetic acid, and very 



