374 LIQUID PARTS OF ANIMALS. 



health ; sometimes more slowly, and sometimes so imperfectly 

 that the clot bears a stronger resemblance to sanies than to the 

 crassamentum of healthy blood. It coagulates more rapidly in 

 inflammatory diseases, and in cases of plethora ; more slowly in 

 putrid fevers, scurvy, and other cachexise. 



The crassamentum is bulky and consistent in plethoric and in- 

 flammatory diseases ; but small, soft, and diffluent in scurvy and 

 typhus. In very malignant diseases, as the yellow fever, it lets 

 fall a black pulverulent sediment. 



After great hsemorrhagies, in asthenic diseases, and in affections 

 of the heart, the serum is very abundant compared with the cras- 

 samentum. Its colour is deep-yellow in jaundice, lemon-yellow 

 in inflammatory diseases, muddy, and whitish in puerperal fe- 

 ver. 



Sometimes a kind of crust covers the crassamentum, usually 

 distinguished from its colour by the name of the buffy coat. 

 This is the case in inflammatory diseases, in intermittent fevers, 

 and in the yellow fever. This crust seems to be fibrin, and its 

 position is probably owing to the globules being deposited more 

 rapidly than in healthy blood. 



MM. Andral and Gaverrey have examined the blood in 360 

 cases of patients in the Hospital de Charite in Paris.* They 

 have drawn from this examination the following general results : 



1. In acute inflammation, as rheumatism, pneumonia, bronchi- 

 tis, pleurisy, peritonitis, amygdalites, erysipelas, and pulmonary 

 tubercles, the fibrin of the blood increases. 



2. In pyrexia, both typhoid and non-typhoid, eruptive fe- 

 vers, as small-pox, measles, scarlatina, and in intermittent fevers, 

 the globules increase while the fibrin remains normal or dimi- 

 nishes. 



3. In chlorosis the globules diminish. 



4. In the malady of Bright the albumen diminishes. 



Let us now endeavour . to point out the alterations which the 

 blood undergoes in certain diseases. On this subject a great 

 many important facts have been collected by M. Lecanu.f It 

 will be sufficient here if we lay before the reader an abstract of 

 his researches. 



1. Blood of infants attacked with induration of the cellular tis- 



* Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. Ixxv. 225. 



t Etudes Chimiques sur le Sang Hum. p. 94. 



