94 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



constitutional disturbances which coincide with those of 

 ordinary anaemia. 



It is in anaemic conditions of the system that we detect the 

 remarkable bruit de soufflet, in reference to which Andral 

 in his essay on the blood has instituted some useful re- 

 searches, the chief result of which is the establishment of 

 the fact, that the intensity and persistence of the bruit is in 

 exact proportion to the severity of the anemia. 



In pregnancy we have a slight example of an anaemic con- 

 dition of the blood, and in chlorosis we see anaemia to prevail 

 with various degrees of severity. In phthisis the scale of 

 the red corpuscles is likewise much reduced, but not to the 

 extent to which its reduction is witnessed in chlorosis ; and 

 this is the more remarkable from the circumstance that in the 

 former disease it is those organs which are affected, between 

 which and the red corpuscles a close connection exists. In 

 cancer also the number of the blood corpuscles is reduced : in 

 phthisis the diminution precedes and accompanies the whole 

 course of the affection, while in cancer it occurs only at an 

 advanced period of the disease, and arises principally from 

 the continual losses of blood to which cancerous patients are 

 so subject. In disordered states of the system purely nervous 

 we find also the red element of the blood to be deficient. 

 The scale of the red globules in a number of cases in which 

 the blood of phthisical patients was submitted to examination 

 oscillated between 80 and 100. 



Increase in the Number of the Red Corpuscles under the 

 Influence of Recovery and of certain Medicinal Agents. 



Under the influence of recovery the red blood corpuscles 

 increase in number, and have a tendency to attain to their 

 physiological standard, which, when reached, they may even 

 exceed, until at length they mount up to the scale which 

 denotes the existence of the plethoric condition. 



Certain medicinal substances exhibit likewise much influence 

 in increasing the number of the red corpuscles ; of these the 

 most remarkable is iron, under the effect of which remedy 



