LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 161 



the same proportion. Sa that although these fluids vary in 

 the different circumstances of health, yet they always agree 

 with each other (LXXI). 



These fluids, likewise, as we have before observed, besides 

 agreeing with one another, approach to the nature of the coagu- 

 lable lymph of the blood in the circumstance of coagulating 

 when exposed to the air, but they differ from it in the time 

 necessary for that coagulation. In dogs that were seemingly 

 in perfect health, whose blood and whose lymph were let out 

 of their vessels at the same time, the lymph was found to be 

 much later in coagulating than the blood. The time which 

 the blood requires for its coagulation is about seven minutes 

 after exposition to the air, but the lymph let out from the 

 lymphatic vessels of the same animals was found to require 

 half an hour, or more, for its coagulation. And although the 

 blood coagulates soonest in the weak animals, yet the contents 

 of the lymphatic vessels, or the fluids in these cavities, do not, 

 but seem later in jellying in proportion as the animal is re- 

 duced, or as they become more watery. 



Moreover, the coagulable lymph of the blood and the lymph 

 of the lymphatic vessels not only differ from one another in 

 the time which they require for their coagulation when exposed 

 to the air, but also they differ more evidently in the time re- 

 quired for their coagulation in the body when merely at 

 rest, without being exposed to air. As, for instance, in a dog 

 killed whilst in health, and whose veins and lymphatic vessels 

 were tied up immediately after his death, the blood in the 

 veins was completely jellied in six hours, but the lymph in the 

 lymphatic vessels of his neck was perfectly fluid twenty hours 

 after his death, and, being let out at this time, jellied after 

 being for some time exposed to the air. 



There is another change of the lymph very evident besides 

 those already mentioned, for it not only is varied from the 

 natural state to the more watery, but also from the natural to 



(LXXI.) Professor Muller a says, that in frogs kept long without food, 

 the blood frequently loses its property of coagulation, and that in such 

 cases the lymph also does not coagulate ; though it usually coagulates 

 quickly, like the blood, when these animals are healthy and active. 



a Physiology, tr. by Dr. Baly, i, 145. 



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