PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL LEUCOCYTOSIS. 225 



foetus, the lymphatic glands in the inguinal and lumbar 

 regions become considerably enlarged, and that some- 

 times to such an extent, that, if we were to find them in 

 a similar state at any other time, we should regard them 

 as inflamed. This enlargement conveys into the blood 

 an increased quantity of fresh particles of a cellular na- 

 ture, and thus from month to month the number of 

 colourless corpuscles augments. At the time of birth 

 we may see in the defibrinated blood of nearly every 

 puerperal woman, whether suffering from pyaemia or not, 

 the colourless corpuscles forming a pus-like sediment. 

 This too is a physiological form which is far from being a 

 pysemic one. But if care be taken to select a puerperal 

 woman, offering symptoms of disease which correspond 

 with those usually presented by pyaemia, nothing is easier 

 than to find these numerous colourless multi-nuclear cells, 

 which are precisely such as are supposed to corroborate 

 the presence of pyaemia. These are fallacious conclu- 

 sions which result from imperfect knowledge of the nor- 

 mal conditions of life and development. As long as we 

 are exclusively bent upon proving the presence of pyae- 

 mia, all this may have the appearance of being a great and 

 new occurrence, and we may, when we examine the 

 blood of a woman in child-bed, consider ourselves justi- 

 fied in concluding that she has pyaemia even before its 

 symptoms declare themselves. But we may examine 

 when we will, we shall always find some traces of leuco- 

 cytosis, just as it has already long been known that it is 

 very common for a buffy coat to form in the case of preg- 

 nant women, because their blood generally has conveyed 

 into it a larger quantity than usual of a more slowly con- 

 tracting fibrine (hyperinosis). This is accounted for by 

 the increased nutrition of the uterus, and by the changes, 

 so nearly allied to inflammatory processes, which are go- 

 ing on in the uterine system, and are associated with a 



15 



