56 CROONIAN LECTURES 



Out of many other examples, I will take two 

 most interesting chemical discoveries, not yet 

 fully completed, which show in a striking way 

 how many so-called vital actions, as knowledge 

 advances, may be included among ordinary 

 chemical or physical actions. 



The first of these discoveries is respecting the 

 coagulation of the blood. Hunter said (vol. iii., 

 p. 113): "As the coagulation of the blood 

 appears to be that process which may be com- 

 pared with the action of life in the solids, we 

 shall examine this process a little further, and 

 see if this power of coagulation can be 

 destroyed. If it can, we shall next inquire if 

 by the same means life is destroyed in the 

 solids, and if the phenomena are nearly the 

 same in both." 



" Coagulation," again he says, " I conceive to 

 be an operation of life corresponding to the 

 convulsion of muscles which takes place at the 

 moment of death." "The blood loses the 

 principle of coagulation, and, I suppose, life." 

 (P. 115.) 



Alexander Schmidt has found that fibrine is 

 formed by the contact of two albuminous 

 matters. One he calls fibrinoplastic, and the 



