198 CIRCULATING FLUIDS: 



and consequently to be more abundant in venous than in arterial 

 blood. 1 The reverse was the case with respect to the albumen. 



Autenrieth, and Prevost and Dumas,^ found a greater 

 proportion of solid constituents in arterial than in venous 

 blood : Lassaigne, like myself, found just the reverse : whilst 

 Letellier asserts that there is no fixed ride on the subject. 



Miillers and Berthold* observe that in the goat there is a 

 larger proportion of fibrin in arterial than in venous blood : the 

 latter chemist extends the statement to the blood of the cat and 

 the sheep. The observations of Sigwart^ and Lassaigne^ are 

 opposed to these statements. 



Prevost and Dumas obtained from arterial a larger propor- 

 tion of blood-corpuscles than from venous blood, and in this 

 respect they confirm the observations of Lecanu and Denis. My 

 own analyses, and those of Letellier, tend, however, to show that 

 the proportion is a fluctuating one. 



Hence we are led to the conchision that there are certain dif- 

 ferences in the composition of arterial and venous blood, which, 

 however, are not constant, but vary according to circumstances. 



The most important of these circumstances are the general 

 health of the individual, and the mode of nourishment, whether 

 dependent upon or independent of the health. 



Let us now consider what must be the qualities of arterial 

 and venous blood when all the functions of the organism are 

 properly discharged, when the nutrition exactly corresponds with 

 our actual Avants, and when the blood undergoes the various 

 changes that we have described in a former page. 



Under these circumstances we arrive a priori at the con- 

 clusion that the final result of the changes in the blood during 



' In order to avoid the error that might arise in the determination of the haemato- 

 globulin from the retention of serum in the clot, Schultz proceeded in the following 

 manner : He dried the clot, and subtracted from its residue the amount of solid matter 

 left by a quantity of serum corresponding to the expelled moisture. The difference 

 he regarded as hffimatoglobulin. We must not, however, forget that the hfemato- 

 globulin does not exist in a dry state in the blood ; and, further, that there are no 

 grounds for assuming that the fluid in which it is held in solution is serum. 



* Annales de Chimie et de Phys., vol. 13. 



^ Physiologic des Menschen, vol. 1, p. 119. 



■* Burdach's Physiologic, p. 281. 



•'* Reil's Archiv, vol. 12, \). [}. 



'^ Journal de Chimie Med. vol. 1, p. 31. 



