30 PROPERTIES OF 



being removed, a little of the clear lymph was taken up with 

 a wet teaspoon, put into a clean cup, and was twenty minutes 

 more in coagulating. Even at the end of an hour and a half, 

 the whole of the blood was not jellied ; for at this time I re- 

 moved the film or pellicle, and took up a second portion of clear 

 lymph with a spoon, and put it into a teacup, where it jellied 

 afterwards ; though this jelly was not indeed quite so firm as 

 the crassamentum itself. 



EXPERIMENT XV. 



A woman, with a slight inflammation in her throat, had 

 eight ounces of blood taken from her arm ; the blood was re- 

 ceived into a basin, and the bleeding finished in four minutes 

 and three quarters, when a film began to form near the air- 

 bubbles ; in seven minutes a transparent size appeared over a 

 considerable part of the surface which was quite fluid, whilst 

 the rest of the blood was coagulating, there being now a very 

 distinct red crust over the rest of the surface. 



Now, from comparing these experiments with what has been 

 observed of the coagulation of the blood, where there is no in- 

 flammatory crust or size, is it not evident that the blood remains 

 longer fluid after being exposed to the air, and has less dispo- 

 sition to coagulate, in those cases where there is a size, than 

 where there is none ? for where there was none, it was found 

 to coagulate completely in seven minutes ; but in one of the 

 others, where the size was very thick, it did not completely co- 

 agulate in less than an hour and a half. 



The power that inflammation has in lessening the disposition 

 of the lymph to coagulate is likewise plain from the following 

 experiment, where the blood in the heart of a dead animal 

 seems to have congealed very slowly. 



EXPERIMENT XVI. 



A dog was killed eight hours after receiving a large wound 

 in his neck. The wound had during this time inflamed con- 

 siderably. Upon opening him next morning, when he had 

 been dead thirteen hours, a large whitish polypus was found in 

 the right ventricle of his heart ; under this was a little blood 

 still fluid, which being taken up with a teaspoon, coagulated 

 soon after being exposed to the air. 



