THE BLOOD. 109 



malady, furnishes the practitioner with an unerring principle 

 upon which the nature and the extent of the treatment adopted 

 should be founded. Hitherto, the chief guides in practice have 

 been based upon experience and clinical observation ; both, 

 doubtless, of high importance ; but still not in many cases 

 sufficient to detect the cause of a malady, and therefore not 

 in themselves equal to the determination of the exact line of 

 treatment to be pursued, or of the extent to which that line 

 should be followed. 



We are now not merely acquainted with the bare fact, 

 derived from experience, that in anaemic conditions of the 

 system the different preparations of iron are useful, but we 

 have dived deeper into the mysteries of organization, and we 

 now know the reason why iron is necessarily so beneficial in 

 the disorders to which such a condition of the system gives 

 rise. 



The precise objects to be held in view, in the employment 

 of every remedial appliance in the treatment of inflammatory 

 affections and fevers, we are now acquainted with ; and by 

 our present knowledge we can judge of the propriety and 

 extent of usefulness of the various plans of treatment which 

 in times past have been had recourse to, or which still 

 continue to be applied ; and we can detect the reason why one 

 particular mode of treatment should have been more success- 

 ful than another. 



Bequerel and Rodier's Pathological Researches on the 

 Blood. 



MM. Bequerel and Rodier* have traversed the same 

 ground as MM. Andral and Gavarret in reference to the 

 blood, which they have examined both in health and disease. 



These authors confirm many of the more important results 

 obtained by antecedent observers, but question the accuracy 

 of some of those results* and add new facts in relation to the 

 normal and abnormal composition of the blood, 



* Gazette Medicale de Paris, 1844. Recherches sur la Composition 

 du Sang dans 1'etat de Sante et dans 1'etat de Maladie. 



K 



