1054 CONDITION OF THE BLOOD IN THE 



is it possible that any serious and permanent 

 deviation from health can exist so long as every 

 part of the body is supplied with a sufficiency 

 of good arterial blood. And that the different 

 forms of fever depend on the extent to which the 

 vital properties of the blo'od are impaired, would 

 appear from the following facts : 



1. That the paroxysm is shorter, and the in- 

 terval longer, in quartans than in tertians, in 

 which, again, the paroxysm is shorter and the 

 intermission longer than in quotidians ; whereas 

 the continued form of the disease lasts for many 

 days or weeks, with slight remissions : 



2. That in all the milder forms of fever, the 

 blood exhibits nearly the same phenomena when 

 drawn from the body as during health, except 

 that it coagulates more slowly, and therefore 

 usually presents a buffy coat, or what has been 

 called the inflammatory crust : 



3. That in typhus, yellow fever, plague, and 

 all the forms of malignant continued fever, (as 

 in blue cholera, tetanus, hydrophobia, and the 

 latter stages of pneumonia,) the blood is so far 

 altered from its natural state, that it requires 

 from thirty minutes to an hour or longer to coagu- 

 late in a very imperfect manner; while in the 

 worst cases it exhibits either a preternaturally 

 viscid, or a dissolved and putrescent state : 



4. That the blood of individuals exposed to a 

 pestilential atmosphere is found to be in a highly 



