3 4 o CHANGE IN THE BLOOD 



II. Alteration in the Composition of the Blood. 



In this place we have to consider how we may pre- 

 vent the textures and organs of the body being 

 damaged, and life destroyed, by the altered blood 

 circulating in the vessels : and we must also inquire 

 whether we can, by judicious interference, promote 

 and accelerate the restoration of the nutrient fluid to 

 its normal state. 



It was formerly supposed that the chief thing to be 

 guarded against in the treatment of fever was undue 

 oxidation ; but later investigations have proved that 

 fever itself is due indirectly to changes which are con- 

 sequent upon insufficient oxidation; and it is, indeed, 

 probable that a febrile state may be engendered by a 

 long continued insufficiency of this most necessary 

 change. It is doubtful if the feverish state could 

 exist in an organism in which the oxidising processes 

 were performed perfectly and at a proper rate. 



There is good reason to think that if the noxious 

 materials which accumulate in the blood in fevers and 

 extensive internal inflammations could be more fully 

 oxidised, they would soon afterwards be eliminated 

 in the form of urea, carbonic acid, and other excre- 

 mentitious matters which at last result from the de- 

 struction of bioplasm and the oxidation of the pro- 

 ducts of its death ; but while these excrementitious 

 matters, or the imperfectly oxidised materials from 

 which they are immediately produced, continue to 



