SPECIAL PART, 



L-MOEBID STATES OF THE BLOOD AND THE OEGANS 

 CONGEENED IN ITS EEXEWAL, PAETICULAELY 

 THE SPLEEN AND LYMPHATIC GLANDS. 



a. Dyscrasi^. 



§ 174. The blood plays sncli a weighty part in pathology that 

 it seems necessaiy to explain why so little space will be devoted 

 to a consideration of its morbid states in the present manual. 



The position of the blood in the domain of pathology is 

 determined by its physiological significance. The blood is the 

 medium through which the interchano-e of matter in the oriranism 

 (StofFwechsel) is carried on. It is the nutrient fluid, which 

 supplies each individual part of the body with the pabulum 

 indispensable for its existence ; it removes the effete and hurtful 

 products of the chemical processes associated with nutrition, and 

 carries them to the excretory organs for elimination. Viewed in 

 this light, the blood is the meeting-place of divers chemical 

 compounds, some of which have already taken part in tissue- 

 metamorphosis, while others are about to take part in it; of 

 compounds whose presence in the blood is in every case only 

 temporary^ and which thus give to tlie blood itself a certain 

 variability of chemical composition, for which not the blood but 

 the organs of the body are really answerable. 



Even if we view the blood as an organ, it is peculiarly liable 

 to change in comparison with other organs. Our right to call 

 the blood an organ cannot be disputed. For it has an independent 

 origin from embryonic tissue in the area vasculosaj apart from 

 other organs ; it possesses specific cells — the blood-corpuscles, 

 which subserve a specific function — that of fixing the oxygen of 

 the air. We must not allow ourselves to be led astray by the 

 fact that the corpuscular elements are separated by a fluid inter- 



