BLOOD-DISINTEGRATION AND POISONS. 



97 



that the leucocytes tended to form masses. Albertoni 52 found 

 that alteration of color was the main change observable in the 

 red corpuscles, their coloring having passed into the plasma, 

 which had become reddish. The leucocytes appeared to form 

 broad plaques. A study of this blood showed that its corpuscles 

 became easily disintegrated; far more so than under usual con- 

 ditions. Vulpian 53 ascertained that the blood-corpuscles were 

 almost all deprived of their haemoglobin when death did not 

 occur early. 54 Camus and Gley 55 found the serum intensely 

 red: a feature which they attribute to a great quantity of dis- 

 solved haemoglobin. 



Among the blood-disintegrating poisons, acetanilid (anti- 

 febrin) comes first in alphabetical order. This drug was found 

 by Herczel, when given to dogs for a length of time, to reduce 

 the alkalinity of the blood, the serum being also found to con- 

 tain "dissolved coloring matter": a fact which probably ac- 

 counts for the inability of blood from poisoned subjects to 

 adhere in rouleaux. Lepine and Aubert 56 furthermore observed 

 that the oxygen of the blood was distinctly decreased. The 

 effects of aconite or aconitine upon the blood are not studied 

 in Wood's work; yet a foot-note refers to subpleural ecchy- 

 moses, an indication of advanced haemolysis, observed in ani- 

 mals by Laborde and Duquesnel, and caused by toxic doses of 

 aconitine. In antimony poisoning the viscera are intensely 

 congested. Magendre found the lungs studded with hepatized 

 areas. Ackermann observed marginal emphysema with spots 

 of atelectasis. The blood is stated by Wood to "usually coagu- 

 late imperfectly." Alcohol was found by Jaillet and Hayem to 

 produce in animals "extensive alteration in the blood-corpus- 

 cles, many of these bodies being shriveled and altered in form, 

 with yellow precipitates of hemoglobin in their interior." 

 Arsenic was found by Bettmann 57 to cause a marked lessening 

 in the number of red blood-corpuscles and the percentage of 

 haemoglobin. Wood, in this connection, notes the interesting 



52 Albertoni: Lo Sperimentale, Aug., 1879. 



68 Vulpian: Academic des Sciences, March 6, 1882. 



54 Quoted by Noe, loc. cit. 



55 Camus and Gley: Academic des Sciences, Jan. 31, 1898. 



56 Lepine and Aubert: Gazette Me"dicale de Strasbourg, i, 1887. 



57 Bettmann: Beitrage zur Path. Anat., etc., xxiii. 



