The Blood. 



27 



The table shows that the amount of total proteids is 

 more regular than the different albumins of which they 

 are composed. 



The specific gravity of the blood plasma is from 1027-1030, 

 of the total weight of the blood it constitutes two-thirds, 

 though, according to Bunge's analysis, the proportion of 

 serum to total blood is not so large ; he puts it down at 

 46-5 per cent, serum, and 535 per cent, corpuscles. Plasma 

 possesses the power of clotting, yielding fibrin and serum. 

 Sheep's blood yields more serum than any other (Halli- 

 burton). 



Perhaps the nearest approach to pure plasma is the fluid 

 found in the heart sac and abdominal cavity of the 

 horse ; even the pathological fluid of the chest, produced 

 as the result of inflammation, is remarkably pure and free 

 from white blood cells, and hence uncoagulable unless on 

 the addition of a little fibrin ferment, when jellying shortly 

 occurs. 



Halliburton has shown by fractional coagulation that 

 serum albumin may be composed of three other albumins, 

 which he designates a, /3, y serum albumins. Strange to 

 say that in the horse, ox, and sheep, no serum albumin a 

 exists, but (3 and <y are present. Serum globulin (also 

 known as paraglobulin and fibrino - plastic substance) 

 exists in different proportions in the blood of domestic 



