38 PROPERTIES OF 



added a teaspoonful of serum, loaded with the red particles of 

 a person whose blood had no inflammatory crust or size. In 

 attending to them, I could not observe that the red particles 

 subsided at all sooner in the serum of the blood that had a 

 crust, than they did in the serum of that blood which had no 

 crust. Thence, I conclude, that the serum (xxn) is not atte- 

 nuated in those cases where the inflammatory crust appears. 



(xxu.) Mr. Hunter a concluded that the red corpuscles of the blood 

 during inflammation are increased in specific gravity, and the serum 

 diminished in specific gravity. Mr. Wharton Jones b found that the 

 corpuscles of buffy blood subside more rapidly in its serum than the 

 corpuscles of blood not buffy do in its serum. But both the consistency 

 and specific gravity of a fluid may be incorrectly indicated by the pace 

 with which these corpuscles fall through it, as explained in Note xxm. 



The serum of the blood in inflammation is very variable in density. 

 Mr. Thackrah, c finding, in some trials, that a marked increase in the 

 proportion of fibrin was attended by a decrease in the solid matter of 

 the serum, supposed, like the older observers referred to in the Intro- 

 duction and in Note xviu, the fibrin of bufly blood to be formed at the 

 expense of the albumen. Dr. B. G. Babirigton d was at one time led 

 to believe that the serum of bufly blood is always deficient in its due 

 proportion of albumen ; but he has since found this not to be the case, 

 having met with blood thickly buffed, of which, in one specimen, the 

 specific gravity of the serum was 1024, and in another 1040. Dr. Trail! 6 

 found about double the usual proportion of albumen in three specimens 

 of milky serum taken from patients labouring under inflammatory dis- 

 eases. Gendrin f states that the serum of blood in inflammation is made 

 more viscid by an excess of albumen, and that the serum expressed from 

 the bufly coat contains a greater proportion of albumen than the rest 

 of the serum. Andral g says he agrees with Traill and Gendrin that the 

 proportion of albumen is nearly doubled in the serum of buffy blood. 

 Thackrah 11 also inferred that the serum separating first from the clot, 

 contains less solid matter than the serum which separates last. 



In some observations, I found, like Dr. Davy, 1 but little* connexion 

 between the density of the serum and the presence of the bufly coat. 

 Thus, in a man aged 33, affected with pulmonary catarrh, the blood 

 thickly buffed, the specific gravity of the serum was 1024; in a man 

 aged 25, blooded for iritis following venereal disease and the use of mer- 

 cury, the blood slightly buffed, the serum was 1029 ; in a man aged 19, 

 labouring under common continued fever, the blood thickly buffed, the 

 serum was 1034; in a man aged 30, with jaundice, the blood thickly 

 buffed, the serum was 1035 ; in a boy aged 4, the blood moderately 

 buffed, the serum was 1025. Serum from very thickly buffed blood of 

 a healthy mare was found to be 1031, and from similar blood of a 



a Works, edited by Palmer, iii, 356. f Hist. Anat. des Inflammations, torn. ii> 

 b Br. and For. Med. Rev. xiv, 590. pp. 442-3, 8vo, Paris, 1826. 



c On the Blood, p. 212, ed. 1834. Anat. Path. t. i, p. 534, 8vo, Paris, 1829. 



<> Cyclopaedia of Anatomy, i, 419. h On the Blood, ed. 1834, pp. 41, 232. 



e Annals of Philos. 1823, vol. v, 199. ' Researches, ii, 34-37. 



