7 '//A' ( ) RIES OF CO A G UJ.A TION. 1 7 7 
these substances readily yield, under the influence of certain reagents 
and c iiu lit inns, a body or bodies giving albumose reactions; and he finds 
that such a body is also present in the blood after their injection, and 
rapidly appears in the urine. 1 Wright considers n probable, therefore, 
that the contrary effects of large and rapid, or small and gradual, 
administratioi] of these extracts is due in the one case to the immediate 
action of the nueleo-proteids in effecting the conversion of the fibrinogen 
into fibrin before there has been time for the formation of albumose; 
and in the other ease, where there has heen time for such formation, to 
the action of the albumose thus formed in preventing coagulation (as 
in the ease of directly injecting albumose into the blood vessels). If 
any albumose is formed, the action of this would, by delaying coagula- 
tion, give time for the formation of more, when a second <\n^. of 
nueleo-proteids is injected. Hence, a dose of nucleo-proteid, which would, 
if administered rapidly, produce instantaneous coagulation throughout 
the vascular system, may, if administered gradually, tend altogether to 
prevent coagulation. But, as Halliburton points out, the explanation of 
the action of "peptone" in producing a negative form of coagulation 
may be that it liberates small quantities of nucleo-proteid, rather than 
that it removes calcium : and if this is so, the explanation offered by 
Wright (and Pekelharing) of the action of nueleo-proteids falls to the 
ground. Moreover, it cannot he accepted as proven that a "peptone" 
moiety is split off from nucleo-proteid. "Peptone" (i.e. "albumose")- 
blood is characterised by extreme diminution of the amount of C0 2 
which it contains," 2 and by diminished alkalinity, 3 and the reason for 
the uncoagulability of such blood is apparently connected with its 
deficiency in C0 2 tension, 4 since it coagulates on passing a stream of 
00 2 throughout it. For the occurrence of intravascular coagulation, 
after injection of nucleo-proteid and similarly acting substances, is 
largely influenced by the amount of C0 2 in the blood, and it is due to 
its richness in CO., that the blood coagulates under these circumstances, 
first in the systematic veins, and of these most readily in the portal 
venous system. 5 
From what has been before said as to the influence of lime, it will be 
understood that the lime-salts of the plasma play an essential part in the 
interaction between the nucleo-proteid and the fibrinogen. This parti- 
cipation of lime in the reaction had not yet been recognised when 
Wooldridge's researches were made, but is freely admitted by Wright, 
whose views upon the subject of the combined action of nucleo-proteid 
and lime in producing coagulation seem to be in close agreement with 
those of Pekelharing (see p. 171). It is, however, still by no means 
clear why in "peptone" plasma, where all the necessary factors for the 
formation of fibrin are present, coagulation, nevertheless, does not occur, 
1 This lias been also shown independently by Pekelharing ("Untersuch. u. d. Fibrin- 
ferment," Amsterdam, 1S92), who otters a similar explanation of the phenomenon of 
negative and positive coagulation. Halliburton and Pickering, on the other hand, con- 
sider that, in the case of colloids, the negative phase cannot be regarded as a subsidiary 
phenomenon, due to disintegration of the material intravenously injected, but is rather a 
result characteristic of the action of small doses, and is comparable to the inhibitory action 
of small doses of certain drugs, which act contrary to the action of larger doses (such as the 
physiological immunity produced by small doses of alexines). 
- Lahousse, Arch. f. Physiol., Leipzig, 1889, S. 77. 
'■'' Salvioli, Arch. ital. de biol., Turin, 1892, vol. xvii. p. 155. 
4 Wright, loc. cit,., and Jaurn. Path, and Bacterid., Edin. and London, 1893, vol. i. p. 4:34. 
5 Wright, Journ. Physiol., Cambridge and London, 1S91, vol. xii. 
VOL. I. — 12 
