THE BLOOD. 69 



was observed by the learned Professor Cullen ; and a third I 

 saw lately by the favour of Dr. Huck and the physicians of the 

 British Lying-in Hospital, who, having bled a woman in a fever 

 that came on soon after delivery, found her blood did not 

 coagulate on being exposed to the air, but appeared like a 

 mixture of the red globules and serum only, the globules having 

 subsided to the bottom in the form of a powder. She died 

 three days after, and, upon opening her, we found the blood 

 had coagulated in her vessels after death, and that a tough 

 white polypus was formed in each auricle of the heart, one of 

 which I have now by me. I examined the blood taken away 

 before she died, and found, on exposing it properly to heat, that 

 it did not coagulate sooner than serum commonly does, nor 

 under 160 ; so that it is probable that, at the time she was 

 bled, her blood either was without the coagulable lymph, or its 

 properties were changed. 



were suffocated in a burning house in Crawford street, March 23, 1846. 

 One of them was scarcely burned at all, and none of them sufficiently 

 so to cause death. Through the kindness of Dr. Boyd, I had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining the hodies at the St. Marylebone Infirmary, 48 hours 

 after the fatal event ; the temperature of the air was 50. In the heart 

 of every one of them the blood was fluid, without the smallest clot ; nor 

 did the blood ever coagulate after having been set aside in cups for obser- 

 vation ; the fingers were contracted, and all the limbs rigid ; the bodies 

 fresh, and remarkably free from disease. 



A coachman, aged about 55, hung himself; he was cut down, dead 

 and stiff, from six to ten hours afterwards, and examined by Dr. Boyd 

 and myself. The blood was fluid in the heart and veins, except two 

 or three very soft clots, so small and nearly diffluent that they were 

 only found after a search ; there was no further coagulation of the 

 blood when it was set apart in a cup. In the above instances, this 

 blood was examined from time to time for about twenty hours. But 

 the observations of Dr. Polli c induce him to believe that no blood be- 

 comes putrid before it has coagulated ; and that in cases in which its 

 property of self-coagulation has been supposed to be wanting, the blood 

 has not been kept long enough for an unusually slow coagulation to 

 take place. A mixture of salt and blood, which will keep fluid and 

 fresh for months, readily putrefies after it has been made to coagulate 

 by diluting it with water (see Note vn). In kittens killed by hanging 

 and by drowning, I have seen coagulated blood in the heart, and the 

 limbs rigid ; in a dog killed by hanging, as. mentioned in Note cxxxn, 

 there were some soft clots in the splenic blood. 



The causes commonly said to prevent coagulation are mentioned hi 

 Note xn. 



c Mr. Paget's Reports, Br. and For. Med. Rev. xix, p 253, and xxi, p. 543. 



