60 PROPERTIES OF 



for a violent pain in her side, attended with a cough ; the quan- 

 tity taken away was eight ounces, which was received into four 

 cups ; and as the orifice was small, about ten minutes were 

 spent in the bleeding. On attending to the different cups, I 

 could observe no difference in the periods at which the coagu- 

 lation commenced and finished in each, allowance being made 

 for the time the blood began to run into each. In every one 

 of these cups the blood was completely jellied in about twenty 

 minutes, and each had a crust or size nearly of the same 

 thickness. So that the bleeding seemed not to have produced 

 any change in the strength of the patient's vessels, nor was her 

 pain sensibly abated by it. She was therefore desired to live 

 low, to confine herself to a vegetable diet, and to take a scruple 

 of nitre every three hours in a draught of the decoctum pectorale; 

 and if her pain and cough were not abated in a day or two, she 

 was directed to repeat the bleeding. As close attendance was 

 not required, I did not visit her till four days after, and then 

 she had got free of her complaints, notwithstanding her blood 

 had been apparently so little changed in the time of the eva- 

 cuation. 



In this case the bleeding seemed neither to have thickened 

 the lymph, nor increased its disposition to coagulate, nor 

 weakened the action of the vessels ; but that it generally pro- 

 duces these effects cannot, I think, be doubted, from our having 

 observed it in so many instances. Perhaps the dread of the 

 operation might here have made the coagulation of the blood 

 in the first cup approach nearer to that in the last ; or perhaps 

 the smallness of the orifice prevented there being so manifest 

 a change produced by the evacuation, from its giving time to 

 the blood-vessels to adapt themselves more equally to the 

 quantity they contained, by which means she was not weakened 

 by the loss of blood. 



It has been observed by Sydenham (xxx) and others, that it 

 sometimes happens, even in inflammatory disorders, when the 

 blood trickles down the arm, instead of running in a full stream, 



(xxx.) Sydenham, Opera Omnia, imp. Soc. Syden. 8vo, Lond. 1844, 

 sect. 6, cap. 3, p. 24 7. The fact was noticed, too, by Dr. Richard Davies. 8 



a Essay on the Blood, p. 25, 8vo, Bath, 1760. 



