98 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



Increase in the Amount of Fibrin in Inflammatory Affections, 

 as in Pneumonia, Pleuritis, Peritonitis, Acute Rheuma- 

 tism, Sfc. 



While in the class of febrile disorders, of which we have 

 just spoken, a deficiency of the fibrin in the blood exists, in 

 another series of affections, the inflammatory, this element 

 is found to be in excess. To constitute an inflammation, 

 however, two concurrent circumstances are required; it is 

 not alone necessary that the proportion of the fibrin should 

 be increased, but also that an organic lesion should have 

 occurred, these two pathological alterations bearing a close 

 and constant relation with each other. 



Since, then, the spontaneously coagulable element of the 

 blood in the one class of disorders, viz. fevers, is deficient, 

 while in the other class, inflammations, it is superabundant, 

 it follows that the specific cause which gives origin to these 

 two orders of maladies operates in two opposite directions ; 

 its tendency in the one being to diminish, and in the other to 

 augment the quantity of fibrin. 



The law of the increase in the quantity of fibrin in inflam- 

 matory disorders manifests itself under very remarkable 

 circumstances ; such, indeed, as one would imagine to be but 

 little favourable to its manifestation : thus, in the case of an 

 inflammation supervening on typhus, in which we have seen 

 that the normal scale of fibrin undergoes a depression, a dis- 

 position to the augmentation of that scale will become 

 apparent. In the example of typhus complicated with local 

 lesion, we have two forces in operation ; the tendency of one 

 of which is to diminish the amount of fibrin, and of the other to 

 increase that amount ; and the result of which forces ope- 

 rating at the same time is the production of a mean effect. 



The proportion of fibrin in man in a state of health is 

 estimated at 3 parts in every 1000 of the blood. In a case 

 of inflammation occurring in the course of typhus, the scale 

 was found to be 5^ in persons affected with chlorosis, in 

 which we have seen that it is the globular element of the 

 blood which is deficient, and attacked with capillary bron- 



