148 OEGANISED FLUIDS. 



liquid may contain all the elements of pus : the fluid portion 

 of course, as soon as it enters the circulation, is dissipated, 

 the solid alone remaining, and this does not constitute pus, 

 but is only one element in the constitution of that fluid. 



In certain states of disease the presence in the vessels of an 

 unusual number of white corpuscles has been observed ; now 

 it is but little probable, that these are derived from the re- 

 absorption of pus, which had been previously formed with- 

 out those vessels; it is more natural, and more consonant 

 with known facts, to suppose, that this accumulation is to 

 be regarded as an indication that the disposition to the 

 formation of pus, on the part of the blood and of the system, 

 exists to an unusual extent, and that such a condition of the 

 vital fluid always precedes sudden and extensive purulent 

 collections. 



Except in the case of the formation of pus in the blood- 

 vessels themselves, it is scarcely possible to suppose that 

 the pus corpuscles are taken bodily into the circulation 

 again; but it would rather appear, from the condition of 

 pus in most abscesses, that the corpuscles become disinte- 

 grated and reduced to their elementary particles, and that 

 thus they enter the circulation again in a fluid state. 



The artificial admixture of pus with the blood imme- 

 diately after its escape from a vein, and before its coagula- 

 tion has commenced, is productive of somewhat singular 

 results. The clot formed in blood, which has been mixed 

 with one quarter part of its own quantity of pus, is soft, 

 diffluent, and dark coloured, sometimes almost livid, and 

 the red corpuscles are found to be wrinkled and deformed, 

 part of their colouring matter having escaped from them 

 and passed into the serum. 



These changes ensue in from twenty-four to forty-eight 

 hours, and possibly result from the state of decomposition in 

 which the pus itself might have been when introduced into 

 the blood, and which condition it communicated to the mass 

 of the blood itself. 



