THE BLOOD. 41 



often met with where there seems to be no such disease, in 

 particular in the blood of pregnant women. And that it differs 

 much in density in different cases ; in some it is extremely 

 firm, in others it is spongy or cellular, and contains much serum 

 in its* cells. These diversities we shall endeavour to explain 

 hereafter, when we have laid before the reader some more ob- 

 servations on the coagulation of the lymph. 1 



1 Although this essay has been so lately printed, yet most of the facts which occur 

 in the preceding pages have been mentioned in my Anatomical Lectures/ ever since 

 the year 1767 ; and some of them were mentioned publicly even before that time. 

 This I thought necessary to observe, because many of them have since appeared in 

 other publications. 



buffy blood they are still more closely connected, almost as if fused to- 

 gether, and the piles run into little clumps often visible to the naked eye. 

 Now we know that coarse particles sink more rapidly in a liquid than 

 fine ones, and the clumps of corpuscles in buffy blood represent much 

 coarser particles than their composing single piles or separate corpuscles. 

 The more they run together, therefore, the faster they will fall in the 

 liquor sanguinis, so as to produce the buffy coat. 



Accordingly, it was found in my experiments that, during the for- 

 mation of the buffy coat, the corpuscles will at first take about two and 

 a half minutes to sink an eighth of an inch in the liquor sanguinis, and 

 fall five or six times faster in the next two or three minutes ; and that 

 this remarkable acceleration in rhe sinking of the corpuscles is connected 

 with their increasing aggregation, appeared from the fact that their rapi- 

 dity of sinking was increased by increasing their aggregation, though the 

 means used did not attenuate the blood ; and prevented or even reversed 

 by destroying the aggregation, though by means which made the blood 

 much thinner and lighter. There is also an acceleration, after a few 

 minutes, in the pace with which the corpuscles of buffy blood sink in 

 the serum, though to a less degree than in the liquor sanguinis. These 

 observations- support the views concerning the formation of the buffy 

 coat originally given by Professor Herrman Nasse of Marbourg, adopted 

 by Professor Henle, Drs. Carpenter and C. J. B. Williams, and arrived 

 at, I believe independently, by Mr. Wharton Jones. 



The efficacy of saline medicines in inflammation probably depends 

 on their correcting the disordered state of the blood, by preventing or 

 destroying the aggregation of the corpuscles, and consequently their 

 tendency to separate from the fibrin and to accumulate in the minute 

 vessels ; and hence the application of a solution of salt to inflamed parts 

 might prove a very useful and simple remedy. 



The experiments from which the results mentioned in this Note were 

 obtained, are detailed in my paper on Buffy Blood, 'Edin. Med. and Surg. 

 Journ./ v. 64, pp. 360-375, in which I have given some historical 

 notices, and references to various writers, concerning the consistency 

 of the liquor sanguinis andthe state of the red corpuscles in inflammation. 



