386 THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



He says, " To see whether the blood in a 

 young person or an old one becomes soonest pu- 

 trid, I desired that the following trials should be 

 made. 



" June 24. Some blood was taken from a wo- 

 man twenty years of age, and its surface, after 

 coagulation, was covered with an inflammatory 

 crust. 



" On the same day, some blood was taken from 

 a woman aged sixty, when crassamentum was 

 also covered with an inflammatory crust. 



" These quantities of blood were set by. 



" The blood from the old woman putrefied in 

 two days ; that from the young woman kept 

 quite sweet till the fifth day, when it began to 

 smell disagreeably ; in this state it continued 

 two days more, and then emitted the common 

 odour of putrid blood." 



" Several experiments were made in the course 

 of the summer of a similar nature with the last, 

 in all which it appeared that the blood from 

 young people kept longer sweet than that which 

 was taken from the old.*" 



It must be acknowledged that the result of this 

 experiment is confirmatory of the principles laid 

 down. HUNTER endeavoured to show that the 

 blood was vital, but he did not attempt to in- 

 vestigate the nature of this property. I have 

 stated in CCCCLVI. and CCCCLVII. that the 



* HUNTER on Inflammation, Vol I. p. 167. Octavo Edit, 



