FIBRINE. IQI 



quence of its coagulability, first, and that very soon 

 after the blood has been removed from the living body, 

 assumes a visible form, and which for this reason has 

 frequently passed for a morphological constituent of 

 the blood. This notion concerning it has of late been 

 maintained in many quarters, and has indeed always had 

 a traditional existence in medicine, inasmuch as from 

 ancient times fibrine was constantly brought forward in 

 addition to the red constituents of the blood as a special 

 element, and it was the custom to estimate the quality 

 of the blood, not only from the number of the blood- 

 corpuscles, but frequently in a much more positive man- 

 ner from the amount of fibrine. 



This dissociation of fibrine from the other fluid consti- 

 tuents of the blood is, to a certain extent, of real value, 

 because fibrine, like the blood-corpuscles, is qui.te a 

 peculiar substance, and so exclusively confined to the 

 blood and the most closely allied juices, that it really 

 may be viewed as connected rather with the blood-cor- 

 puscles than with the mere fluids which circulate as 

 serum. If we consider the blood in its really specific 

 constituents, in those, by means of which it becomes 

 blood, and is distinguished from other fluids, it cannot 

 be denied that, on the one hand, the porpuscles with 

 their haematine, and, on the other, the fibrine of the 

 liquor sanguiuis are the elements in which the specific 

 differences must be sought for. 



If now we next proceed to consider these constituents 

 a little more closely, the morphological description of 

 fibrine is comparatively rapidly made. On examining 

 it,' as it appears in blood-coagula, it is nearly always 

 found in the form described by Malpighi, the fibrillar. 

 Its fibres generally form extremely fine interlacements, 

 delicate networks, in which they usually cross and join 

 one another in a somewhat tortuous form. The greatest 



