STATE OF THE BLOOD. 



357 



Indications for Treatment as deduced from a know- 

 ledge of the state of the Blood prior to an A ttack of 

 Fever. That the blood is not in a heathy 'state prior 

 to an attack of fever is proved by many facts, though 

 analyses of the blood during the period of incubation 

 of fever poisons are wanting. The bioplasm is pro- 

 bably in larger proportion than in the healthy state. 

 The minute particles of living matter which I have 

 shown to exist in the blood in vast numbers, and to 

 pass through the walls of the capillaries in certain 

 cases,* probably increase in every feverish condition. 

 But, besides this, the white blood corpuscles and the 

 masses of bioplasm in the walls of the vessels and in 

 the tissues become larger, as was described in my 

 Cattle Plague Report, published in 1866. The in- 

 crease of the bioplasm in the blood, in the vessels, and 

 in the tissues is preceded by the formation in the 

 blood of pabulum adapted for its nutrition. This 

 soluble nutritive matter would have been' converted 

 into excrementitious substances in the normal state, 

 and its accumulation in the blood would have been 

 thus prevented ; for, as is well known, in health, 

 excess of food introduced into the body does no 

 harm, because the amount over and above that 

 required for the system is soon converted into excre- 

 mentitious matters, which are excreted and removed 

 altogether from the body. As an indication that the 



* Transactions of the Microscopical Society, December 9, 1863, " On 

 the Germinal Matter of the Blood," etc. 



2 B 



