AND ANIMAL LIFE. 387 



difference between the inflammatory state of 

 the blood in disease and childhood is merely in 

 degree. This opinion is almost as directly prov- 

 ed as the preceding, regarding the condition of 

 the sanguineous fluid at different ages, by the 

 following experiment of the same physiologist : 

 " I wished," he says, " to see if blood that coa- 

 gulated with an inflammatory crust putrefied 

 later than that which coagulated without it ; 

 for I conceived that the strength of coagulation 

 was something similar to the strength of contrac- 

 tion in a muscle, resisting putrefaction. For this 

 purpose I ordered the following experiments to 

 be made. 



EXPERIMENT I. 



" Four ounces of blood were taken from the arm, which, 

 after coagulation, had the inflammatory crust upon its sur- 

 face, and was also cupped." 



EXPERIMENT II. 



" On the same day four ounces of blood were taken from 

 another person's arm, which on coagulating shewed no 

 inflammatory crust on its surface. Both these quantities 

 of blood were kept, in order to see which would resist 

 putrefaction longest. 



" By the fourth day, that without buff was putrefied ; 

 but the blood with the inflammatory crust did not putre- 

 fy till the seventh day." * 



* Ibid. p. 166. 

 B b2 



