INTRODUCTION. xliii 



blood and the globules of the tissues was insisted on by 

 Tiedemann; 1 and Burdach 2 resisted the hypothesis that the 

 fibrils of fibrin are composed of globules ; while in France De 

 Blainville 3 declared that such a structure was seen only by the 

 dupes of an optical delusion. 



But this delusion must have been widely spread on the Con- 

 tinent. Besides the writers already cited, Professors Miiller 4 

 and Wagner/ and Dr. Milne Edwards, 6 state that it was gene- 

 rally believed that coagulation is produced by a rnnning toge- 

 ther of the red corpuscles, before Berzelius announced that the 

 fibrin is liquid in the flowing blood, and becomes solid in the 

 clot. This last opinion, as I have before shown, was both a 

 very old and a very new one when that eminent chemist ad- 

 vanced it. That it will ever be commonly known as a fact 

 established long ago is almost too much to hope ; for M. Denis 7 

 has even lately declared that he was the first to admit the 

 liquidity of the fibrin in the circulating blood ! 



Professor Miiller witnessed coagulation in the liquor san- 

 guinis after he had filtered it from the red corpuscles of the 

 frog ; 8 and he preserved for a while the fluidity of the blood of 

 man and other vertebrate animals with carbonate of potash, so 

 that the corpuscles sunk, and the liquid fibrin became solid above 

 them. 9 Of these experiments, the first was new and ingenious 

 in form ; the second was of an old sort and more complicated 

 than some of Hewson's ; but neither was required to demon- 

 strate the accuracy of his views, because he had already done 

 that by the most simple, direct, and conclusive experiments. 



And even if the researches of Hewson and of his prede- 

 cessors and successors were to be set at naught, British phy- 

 siologists had, before Professor Muller's experiments were 

 known here, generally adopted Dr. Babington's term, liquor 



1 Physiology, tr. by Dr. Gully and Dr. Lane, vol. i, p. 397, 8vo, London, 1834. 



2 Traite de Physiologic, tr. par Jourdan, torn, vi, pp. 34, 59, 8vo, Paris, 1837. 



3 Cours de Physiologic Generate et Comparee, torn, i, p. 234, 8vo, Paris, 1829. 



4 Physiology, tr. by Dr. Baly, vol. i, pp. 109-10, 1st edit. 



5 Physiology, tr. by Dr. Willis, p. 264, note, 8vo, London, 1844. 



6 Cyclopaedia of Anatomy, vol. i, p. 413, 8vo, London, 1836. 



7 Essai sur 1' Application de la Chimie a 1'etude physiologique du Sang de 1'Homme, 

 pp. 67, 356, 8vo, Paris, 1838. 



s Annales des Sciences Naturelles, torn, xxvii, pp. 222-4, 8vo, Paris, 1832. 

 ' Physiology, tr. by Dr. Baly, vol. i, p. 112, 1st edit. 



