GLOBULOCIDAL AND OTHER PROPERTIES OF SERUM 149 



The blood in the gastric and mesenteric veins will vary much according 

 to the stage of digestion and the nature of the food taken, and can therefore 

 be seldom exactly the same. Speaking generally and without considering 

 the sugar and other soluble matters which may have been absorbed from 

 the alimentary canal, this blood appears to be deficient in solid matters, 

 especially in colored corpuscles, owing to dilution by the quantity of water 

 absorbed, to contain an excess of protein matter, and to yield a less tenacious 

 kind of fibrin than that of blood generally. 



The blood of the portal vein, combining the peculiarities of its two factors 

 the splenic and mesenteric venous blood, is usually of lower specific gravity 

 than blood generally, is more watery, contains fewer colored corpuscles, 

 more proteins, and yields a less firm clot than that yielded by other blood, 

 owing to the deficient tenacity of its fibrin. 



Guarding (by ligature of the portal vein) against the possibility of an 

 error in the analysis from regurgitation of hepatic blood into the portal vein, 

 recent observers have determined that hepatic venous blood contains less 

 water, proteins, and salts than the blood of the portal veins; but that it 

 yields a much larger amount of extractive matter, in which is one constant 

 element, namely, glucose, which is found whether carbohydrates have 

 been present in the food or not. 



GLOBULOCIDAL AND OTHER PROPERTIES OF SERUM. 



Cytolysis. It has been known for some time that the sera of certain 

 animals when injected into the circulation of animals of another species will 

 cause destructive changes in the blood corpuscles, accompanied by 

 symptoms of poisoning, which may even end fatally. These results served 

 to bring into disrepute the use of foreign blood in transfusion, which has 

 consequently been practically abandoned. The discharge of the hemo- 

 globin of the red blood corpuscles and their solution in the plasma (laking) 

 is now included in the general term Cytolysis, and more specifically known 

 as Hemolysis. Agents which produce such an effect are known as hemolytic 

 or hemotoxic agents. 



Transfusion of the blood of one animal into the vessels of another is 

 often quickly fatal because of the hemolytic reactions of the two bloods. 

 Transfusions between different species or distantly related animals are as a 

 rule not possible. But the blood of different individuals of the same 

 species are usually not lytic. This subject possesses great importance 

 to man because of the growing practice of blood transfusions in man. 

 However not all human bloods can be blended without great danger though 

 as a rule members of the same family are miscible. Human bloods must 

 first be tested or typed, as it is called, to determine whether or not lysis 



