ALBUMEN OF BLOOD. 89 



It is remarkable, that the proportion of water in the 

 blood may be sometimes increased even during its abstrac- 

 tion from an artery or vein. Thus Dr. Zimmerman in 

 bleeding dogs, found the last drawn portion of blood 

 contain 12 or 13 parts more of water in 1000 than the 

 blood first drawn ; and Polli noticed a corresponding 

 diminution in the specific gravity of the human blood 

 during venesection, and suggested the only probable ex- 

 planation of the fact, namely, that during bleeding, the 

 blood-vessels absorb very quickly a part of the serous 

 fluid with which all the tissues are moistened. 



The albumen may vary, consistently with health, from 60 

 to 70 parts in the I ooo of blood. The form in which it 

 exists in the blood is not yet certain. It may be that of 

 simple solution as pure albumen : but it is, more probably, 

 in combination with soda, as an albuminate of soda ; for, 

 if serum be much diluted with water, and then neutralized 

 with acetic acid, pure albumen is deposited. Another 

 view entertained by Enderlin is that the albumen is dis- 

 solved in the solution of the tribasic phosphate of soda, 

 to which he considers the alkaline reaction of the blood to 

 be due, and solutions of which can dissolve large quantities 

 of albumen and phosphate of lime. 



The proportion of fibrin in healthy blood may vary be- 

 tween 2 and 3 parts in 1000. In some diseases, such as 

 typhus, and others of low type, it may be as little as '034 ; 

 in other diseases, it is said, it may be increased to as much 

 as 7*528 parts in 1000. But, in estimating the quantity 

 of fibrin, chemists have not taken account of the white 

 corpuscles of the blood. These cannot, by any mode of 

 analysis yet invented, be separated from the fibrin of 

 mammalian blood : their composition is unknown, but 

 their weight is always included in the estimate of the 

 fibrin. In health, they may, perhaps, add too little to its 

 weight to merit consideration : but in many diseases, espe- 

 cially in inflammatory and other blood diseases in which 



