106 THE CIRCULATION. 



been tried to illustrate the life-giving power of the blood. 

 An animal that has bled so freely as to be at the point of 

 dying, is promptly brought back to life by an operation 

 called transfusion, by which fresh blood from a living 

 animal is injected into the blood-vessels of his body. 



13. It is related that a dog, deaf and feeble from age, 

 had hearing and activity restored to him by the introduc- 

 tion into his veins of blood taken from a young dog ; and, 

 that a horse, twenty-six yea"rs old, having received the blood 

 of four lambs acquired new vigor. And further, that a dog, 

 just dead from an acute disease, was so far revived by trans- 

 fusion, as to be able to stand and make a few movements. 



14. Transfusion has been practised upon man. At one 

 time, shortly after Harvey's discovery of the " Circulation 

 of the Blood," it became quite a fashionable remedy, it 

 being thought possible by it to cure all forms of disease, 

 and even to make the old young again. But these claims 

 were soon found extravagant, and many unhappy accidents 

 occurred in its practice ; so that being forbidden by govern- 

 ment and interdicted by the Pope, it rapidly fell into 

 disuse. At the present time, however, it is sometimes re- 

 sorted to in extreme cases, when there has been a great 

 and rapid loss of blood ; and there are upon record several 

 instances where, other means having failed, life has been 

 restored or prolonged by the operation of transfusion. 



15. This reviving power of the blood seems to reside in 

 the corpuscles ; for transfusion, when attempted to be per- 

 formed with the serum alone, has, in every case, proved fruit- 

 less. Now, though so much depends upon the blood and 

 its corpuscles, it is a mistake to suppose that in them alone 

 is the seat of life, or that they are, in an exclusive manner, 

 alive. All the organs and parts of the body are mutually 

 dependent one upon the other; and the complete usefulness 



13. The caee of the deaf and feeble dog ? Horse ? Dead dog ? 



14. Transfusion, as a fashionable remedy ? What further of transfusion y 



15. The seat of the reviving power of the blood ? What further is related 



