178 FIBRINE IN THE HUMAN BODY. 



FACTS TENDING TO SHOW A DAILY DEVELOPMENT AND 

 TRANSFORMATION OF SEVERAL KILOGRAMMES OF 

 FIBRINE IN THE HUMAN BODY, AND ALSO WHERE 

 THIS DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION TAKE 

 PLACE. 



BY E. BROWN-SEaUARD. 



{Translated from the ^'Journal de la Physiologie deVhomme et des 

 animauxr Tome premier. Paris, 1858.) 



Feom the researches of Bidder and Schmidt we learn that the quan- 

 tity of organic matter undergoing transformation in the animal econ- 

 omy, judging of it by the amount of the secretions is very great. 

 The following facts, established by these able physiologists, enable 

 U3 to form some idea of it : the dog, for example, secretes an amount 

 of gastric juice during the twenty four hours equal in weight to one- 

 tenth of the weight of the animal, nearly twenty grammes of bile are 

 secreted for each kilogramme of the dog's weight in the course of 

 ■ one day. The other secretions, (saliva, pancreatic fluid, succus 

 entericus) are also very large. 



We are indebted to Colin of Alfort for numerous experiments 

 confirmatory of the results obtained by Bidder and Schmidt in refer- 

 ence to these various secretions. 



The existence of these secretions, and the absorption of a great 

 part of their component elements, imply that extensive modifications 

 are continually taking place in the blood. 



The facts about to be submitted lead to the same conclusion. 



Lehmann has proved, by experiments made upon horses, and by 

 Others, more recently on dogs, that the blood issuing from the liver 

 does not contain fibrine, whilst the blood of the vena portse contains 

 from 4'24 to 5 '92 parts in a thousand in the case of the horse, and 

 from 3-98 to 5-07 in the case of the dog. I have, upon several 

 occasions, satisfied myself that the blood of the supra hepatic veins, 

 in the dog, does not spontaneously coagulate, ^nd yields no fibrine 

 when whipped. Once or twice I have seen a few flocculent fibres in 

 blood from these veins, (not mixed, with that from the vena cava.) 

 Lehmann has upon two occasions observed the same thing, but the 

 quantity of fibrine of which these flocculi are composed is too insig- 

 nificant to be worthy of consideration. 



