130 THE BLOOD AND ITS CIRCULATION. 



a decomposition, until its relation to those other albuminoid sub- 

 stances found with it in the liquor of the blood is more fully estab- 

 lished. 



We shall not speak of the theory of Bechamp and Estor, who 

 maintain that the fibrine is formed by the union of those organic 

 living molecules which they have termed microzymas. These re- 

 searches have not yet been established by observed facts and experi- 

 ments, which form the ordinary domain of science. Denis (of 

 Commercy), in France, and Schmidt, in Germany, have found 

 similar results in a series of researches which were extremely 

 fruitful in pathological applications, and are so important that we 

 cannot resist giving a short resume of them, in order to complete 

 the study of the serum. 



According to Schmidt and Denis (of Commercy), the albumi- 

 nous part of the blood is composed of two substances, of which one, 

 serine (52 to 1000 of blood), coagulates only by the action of heat 

 or of acids; the other, plasmine (25 to 1000 of blood), coagulates 

 under the influence of chloride of sodium, and may be redissolved 

 in from 10 to 20 parts of its weight of water. A part of the solu- 

 tion, however, as of the original plasmine, may separate sponta- 

 neously and coagulate; this is concrete fibrine (3 or 4 to 1000 parts of 

 blood) : the rest remains dissolved, but coagulates under the influ- 

 ence of sulphate of magnesia; this is dissolved fibrine (22 to 1000 

 parts of blood). The coagulation of the blood is thus the result of 

 the separation of the plasmine into dissolved and concrete fibrine. 

 The variations in the quantity of fibrine in coagulated blood are 

 entirely owing to a decomposition which divides the plasmine more 

 or less unequally into its two products. When we find an excess 

 of concrete fibrine (8 grammes, for instance), there is a diminution 

 of the dissolved fibrine (17 only in the example chosen), and vice 

 versa. 



We can understand, in this way, all that was still obscure in 

 physiology, as the pathology of the coagulation of the blood. 

 Thus the blood which comes from the liver apparently contains no 

 fibrine; but if its plasmine be precipitated by chloride of sodium, 

 and the coagulum dissolved in from 10 to 20 parts of its weight of 

 water, the normal quantity of concrete fibrine (2 to 4 gr.) will be 

 precipitated, either spontaneously or by beating. The plasmine of 

 the blood from the liver thus contains the two kinds of fibrine, 

 but a cause, which it is still difficult to decide (see p. 127, above), 

 has prevented their separation, and concealed the existence of the 

 concrete fibrine, as it was formerly known. On the other hand, 

 we recognize, as a general rule, the increased size of the clot and 

 of fibrine in inflammations. There are some inflammations, how- 

 ever, in which we think we discover some diminution in the coag- 

 ulable element, hypinosis ; but here also concrete fibrine prevails 

 over dissolved fibrine in the composition of the plasmine, and 

 appears immediately, if a separation of the latter and formation of 

 the clot be artificially produced (precipitation by chloride of sodium, 

 solution in 10 times its weight of water, exposure to the air, beating, 



