BLOOD. 373 



Prevost and Dumas analyzed the blood of the vena portae, and 

 obtained the following results.* 



Water, . 801-4 



Albumen and salts, 84-4 

 Globules, . 114-2 



1000-0 



The globules, as might be expected, are less and the water 

 more than in venous blood ; doubtless because a considerable 

 portion of the globules in the arterial blood has been employed 

 in nourishing the abdominal viscera from which the vena portce 

 proceeds. 



According to Denis, the blood of the placenta contains less 

 water and more globules than the venous blood of the same wo- 

 man. The albumen, fatty matters, and salts are sensibly the 

 same. This blood has the smell of the liquor of the amnios, and 

 a decidedly brownish red colour. The blood of the foetus is 

 quite similar to that of the placenta. It contains less water and 

 more globules than that of the same child some time after birth. 

 The placenta supplies the place of breathing to the child. We 

 see that, like the lungs, it furnishes the blood with an additional 

 quantity of globules. 



VENOUS BLOOD DURING VARIOUS DISEASES. 



The colour of venous blood varies in different diseases. In 

 inflammatory fever it is more scarlet, or approaches somewhat to 

 that of arterial blood. In Asiatic cholera, scurvy, and typhus, it 

 has a deep -red colour approaching to black. 



The specific gravity increases in inflammatory diseases and in 

 certain phlegmasia3, also in the common cholera, and in certain 

 dropsies. It diminishes in scurvy, putrid disease, different ca- 

 chexiaB, such as diabetes, scrofula, chlorosis, copious hsemorrha- 

 gies, typhus and malignant exanthemata. 



The smell changes completely in scurvy, confluent small-pox 9 

 and putrid fevers. 



When healthy blood is drawn from a vein it always, after 

 a certain interval of time, separates into serum and crassamen. 

 turn. In disease it sometimes coagulates more rapidly than in 



Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. xxiii. 57, 



