ON THE PATHOLOGICAL MORPHOLOGY OF SOME ANIMAL FLUIDS. 233 



The envelope of the globules is a red substance, soluble in water, from 

 whence the blood takes its red colour, and is called cruor (haematosin) ; 

 but the nucleus is not soluble in water ; it is white, and is called fibrine. 



The plastic lymph, on account of its lighter specific weight, coagu- 

 lates, and constitutes the superior part of the clot (namely, the so-called 

 phlogistic or buffy crust), exhibiting a yellowish- white colour, and is of 

 very firm consistence, tenacious, elastic, and transparent. 



The blood coagulating quickly, offers no phlogistic crust, for the glo- 

 bules of the blood, on account of the more rapid coagulation of the plastic 

 lymph, are not permitted to fall to the bottom ; hence they become sus- 

 pended by it, and do not change the place which they occupy. They 

 tinge the clot in every part of a red colour ; hence, on account of the 

 equable distribution of the plastic lymph, the clot preserves an equable 

 tenacity and firmness in every part. 



The serum of the blood, extricated from the clot by the coagulation of 

 the plastic lymph, appears of a greenish- white colour, and is a thin and 

 transparent fluid. Blood, quickly coagulating, extricates but little of 

 the serum, because a part of the serum remains shut up in the plastic 

 lymph ; the quicker, therefore, the coagulation of the blood, the smaller 

 the quantity of serum which is extricated ; and, vice versa, the slower 

 the coagulation, the more of the serum is extricated, (i. e. in blood 

 free from any dyscrasy) ; so that the quantity of serum extricated is in 

 direct relation with the quantity of phlogistic crust ; for when there is a 

 large phlogistic crust, then there is a large quantity of serum, and when 

 there is no crust, then but little or no serum is extricated. 



Blood stagnating in the heart and large vessels, life being extinct, 

 separates in the same manner into its constituent parts, viz., into clot 

 and serum, the clot, as in vessels out of the organism, adapting itself 

 to the form of the vessels in which it remains. In the heart and 

 large vessels it forms oblong, globose, cylindrical, or conoid pieces, the 

 superior part of which, of a white colour and gelatinous, constitutes the 

 phlogistic crust, composed of plastic lymph ; but the inferior part of 

 the coagulated blood, of a deep black, is composed of the globules of 

 the blood. These coagula are called polypi of the heart. The recent 

 plastic lymph of these polypi, investigated by the microscope, is com- 

 posed of soft, very thin, transparent fibrils, running in a straight and 

 parallel direction, and enclosing among them very small molecules. 

 Plate 10, fig. 65. 



The plastic flocculent exudation of purulent puerperal peritonitis, is 

 composed of plastic lymph and globules of pus. Plate 10, fig. 60. 



The yellowish gelatinous plastic exudation produced from recent peri- 



