BLOOD, RESPIRATION, CIRCULATION AND DISTURBANCES 315 



taken by A. VON KORANYI and J. BENCE. It is to the credit of A. 

 VON KORANYI that he applied these results to the disturbances of the 

 circulation. We have to thank him for a truly illuminating dis- 

 cussion of the pathological physiology of the circulation (A. VON 

 KORANYI and 0. RICHTER,* Vol. II, p. 51 et seq.). 



Finally, we may conclude that increase in the C0 2 content causes a 

 swelling of the blood corpuscles which may be considered the chief 

 factor in the increased viscosity of the blood. By introducing 

 oxygen the process is reversed. 



Circulatory disturbances may be conditioned by failure of the 

 motor, the heart, by changes in the pipe system, the arteries, veins 

 or capillaries, or finally by increased viscosity of the blood. Every 

 change in the internal friction of the blood must in the first place 

 have an effect upon the heart, and in the second place upon the 

 tubular system. It follows then that a deficient cardiac function 

 may primarily produce an increased viscosity of the blood (through 

 insufficient supply of oxygen), or an increased viscosity of the blood, 

 due primarily to a disturbance in tissue metabolism, may secondarily 

 result in a disturbance of the heart. We have recognized that an 

 accumulation of acids, especially an accumulation of C02, may be 

 responsible for an increase in the viscosity of the blood. It would 

 indeed be a grave error were we to believe that the course of events 

 in the body, during circulatory disturbances, has the simple formula 

 we have given. A further presentation of the complicated circum- 

 stances and the therapeutic influences would take us far beyond the 

 limits of this book, although most of the phenomena have not as yet 

 been considered from the colloid-chemical standpoint. The increase 

 in the number of red blood corpuscles, the increase in their Cl con- 

 tent, etc., the entire course of circulatory decompensation and com- 

 pensation are questions which in the present state of knowledge are 

 solved better by the practised eye of clinicians than by the calcula- 

 tions of research. 



Secretion and Absorption. 



Water and food enter the gastrointestinal canal in normal nutri- 

 tion. The food is changed from a colloidal to a crystalloidal con- 

 dition and is thus able to pass through the intestinal membrane with 

 the water and so reach the interior of the body it is absorbed. 

 Excess of water and useless crystalloids are eliminated by the glands 

 (secretion) m If we accept this rough sketch, secretion becomes, as 

 M. H. FISCHER has defined it, the mirror image of absorption. There 

 are organs which take up solutions and those that eliminate them. 

 We know from previous chapters that the organism strives its utmost 



