658 THEORY OF COAGULATION. 



ration has been deranged only for a short time, 

 the contractile power of the blood may be 

 greatly impaired without much, if any loss of 

 fibrin. 



In opposition to the well established fact, that 

 in persons of the sanguine temperament, with a 

 broad and full chest, the blood coagulates quickly 

 and firmly, as in all the more powerful mamma- 

 lia, and still more so in birds, whose vital energy 

 is vastly greater, ceteris paribus, that in persons 

 belonging to the phlegmatic temperament, and in 

 the various species of cold blooded animals, the 

 process of coagulation is imperfect, it has been 

 recently maintained by Mr. Ancell that " blood 

 coagulates most rapidly in weak animals, in weak 

 states of the constitution, and in diseases of de- 

 bility" that " when the blood is a long time in 

 coagulating, its contractile power is strong, cor- 

 responding with the vigour of the constitution." 

 (Lectures on the Blood, Lancet, Jan. 1840.) 



This extraordinary declaration, so inconsistent 

 with the analogies of nature, and which the in- 

 telligent author has offered as a general axiom, 

 seems to have been founded on the observation 

 of Hewson, Dr. Davy, and others, that the blood 

 of animals exhausted by excessive hemorrhage, 

 and by long continued muscular exertion, coa- 

 gulates much sooner than when taken from the 

 vessels in a healthy state. In regard to the cause 

 of this apparent exception to the general laws of 



