THE BLOOD. 85 



been killed only three or four hours after eating. And as the 

 whiteness, in all the cases that I examined, was owing to a 

 quantity of small globules like those of milk (which are known 

 to be oily) I concluded that these in the human serum, when 

 white, were oily likewise, and recollecting to have read some- 

 where of an experiment by which butter had been got from 

 such human serum, I tried, by agitating some of it a little di- 

 luted, to separate its oil, or to churn it, but without success. I 

 then inspissated some of it to dryness, and compared it with 

 the natural serum of human blood prepared in the same way, 

 and found it "less tenacious, and much more inflammable ; 

 and when thus dried, its oil oozed out so much as to make the 

 paper in which it was kept greasy (LVIII). Another portion 



(LVIIT.) Mr. Hunter* observed that the milky serum is not the same 

 in all cases, as the globules which form the wheyish appearance some- 

 times swim and sometimes sink in water ; and he believed that the super- 

 natant milky matter does not exist in the circulating blood, but is formed 

 after the separation of the serum. Hewson's proof, that the milk-like 

 matter is of a fatty nature, has been confirmed by Dr. Traill, b 

 Dr. Christison, c Dr. Benjamin Babington, d and Heller. 6 I have several 

 times seen the milk-like matter on the surface of the blood, both 

 arterial and venous, before there was any separation of serum and 

 before coagulation was complete. 



The milky appearance on the blood or in the serum was ascribed by 

 Boyle and *Lower f , Gibson,^ St. Hilaire, h Lister, 1 Dr. Arbuthnot,J 

 Quesnay, k Stuart, 1 Senac, William Fordyce, n and Rush, to an admix- 

 ture of chyle with the blood. This opinion has been confirmed by the 

 experiments of Hutchinson, p whose dissertation I have not seen, by 

 Mr. Thackrah, q Dr. Buchanan/ and myself. 8 But there is a turbid 

 and whitish serum neither owing to the presence of chyle, nor to 

 oily matter ; and probably connected with disease, as indeed a fatty 

 serum sometimes is. In one specimen of serum resembling thin water- 



a Works, ed. by Palmer, iii, 55-6. k Principes de Chirurgie, 8vo,Paris,1746, 

 b Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, xvii, p. 34. 



235, 637; and xix, 319. Phil. Trans. 1735-6, xxxix, 289. 



c Ibid, xxxii, 286. m Traite du Comr, torn, ii, p. 77, ed. 

 d Med. Chir. Trans, xvi, 47-50. 1749. 



e Dr. Simon's Animal Chemistry, tr. for n Inquiry into the Causes of Putrid and 



Syd. Soc. p. 271, 8vo, Lond. 1845. Inflammatory Fevers, 8vo, Lond. 



f Phil. Trans. 1665-6, i, 117. 1773, p. 24. 



s Anat. of Human Bodies Epitomized, Med. andPhys. Journ. 1806, xvi, 199. 



p. 276, 3d ed. 8vo, Lond. 1688. p Inaug. Dissert, on the Conversion of 

 h Anatomic du Corps Humain, torn, ii, Chyle into Blood, 1804. 



p. 124, 8vo, Paris, 1698. On the Blood, ed. 1834, p. 130, Exp. 

 1 Dissertatio de Humoribus, 8vo, Lond. CLXVII. 



1707, p. 236. r Trans. Glasgow Phil. Soc. March 1844. 



J Essay concerning Aliments, p. 33, 8vo, Appendix to Gerber's Anatomy, pp. 



Lond. 1731. 21-2,90. 



