312 THE BLOOD. 



water or the addition of a little acid. Opinions in regard to the occurrence 

 of an antithrombin in the peptone-plasma seem to be unanimous, and we 

 have collected rather considerable experience in regard to the formation 

 of this antithrombin. According to NOLF, the peptone (more correctly 

 the proteoses) causes an alteration in the leucocytes and the walls of the 

 vessels, and a substance is secreted which brings about, in the liver, the 

 formation of antithrombin. According to DELEZENNE the proteoses 

 bring about a destruction of leucocytes, and thereby a substance accelerat- 

 ing coagulation and another having a retarding action are set free. The 

 first is destroyed by the liver, and hence the action of the retarding sub- 

 stance (the antithrombin) is obtained. The only thing that is positively 

 proven is the part taken by the liver in this retardation of coagulation, 

 as shown by GLEY and PACHQN; the non-appearance of the thrombin 

 formation is not explained by the above theories. 



The reason of the slow coagulation of the blood in haemophilia is not 

 well known. Recent investigations of MORAWITZ and LOSSEN 1 seem 

 to show that a lack of thrombokinase plays an important part in this 

 condition. This explains the repeatedly observed relation of the vessel- 

 walls to haemophilia as, according to NOLF, the thrombokinase (his 

 thrombozym) is also secreted by the endothelial cells. 



The non-coagulability of cadaver blood depends usually, according to MORA- 

 WITZ, 2 upon the fact that it contains no fibrinogen, due to a fibrinolysis. 



The gases of the blood will be treated of in Chapter XVII (on respira- 

 tion) . 



IV. THE QUANTITATIVE COMPOSITION OF THE BLOOD. 



The quantitative analyses of the blood are of little value. We must 

 ascertain on one side the relation of the plasma and blood-corpuscles to 

 each other, and on the other the constitution of each of these two chief 

 constituents. The difficulties which stand in the way of such a task, 

 especially in regard to the living, non-coagulated blood, have not been 

 removed. Since the constitution of the blood may differ not only in 

 different vascular regions, but also in the same region under different 

 circumstances, which renders a number of blood analyses necessary, it 

 can hardly appear remarkable that our knowledge of the constitution of 

 the blood is still relatively limited. 



The relative volume of blood-corpuscles and serum in blood has been 

 determined by various methods. Of these methods that of L. and M. 

 BLEiBTREu 3 against which important objections have been raised by 



1 Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 94. 



2 Hofmeister's Beitrage, 8. 



3 Pfltiger's Arch., 51, 55, and 60. 



