180 FIBRINK IN THE HUMAN BODY. 



coagulable spontaneously nor by whipping. If a larger quantity be 

 desirable, one pair of forceps only should be applied at the point of 

 termination of the renal veins in the vena cava, then divide the renal 

 vein, and collect the blood which flows from it. In a few minutes, 

 more than sufficient is obtained than is necessary to prove by the 

 method of M'hipping, that there is no fibrine in the collected blood. 

 If the blood be allowed to flow for more than three or four minutes, 

 sometimes it may be found to contain a small amount of fibrine, and 

 after seven or eight minutes, this element is almost always present 

 in considerable quantity. 



My experiments were made upon dogs and rabbits. It is difficult 

 to succeed, especially with rabbits, on account of the disturbance of 

 the renal function produced by the opening of the abdomen. 



The non spontaneous coagulability, the negative results afibrded 

 by microscopical examination and by the method of whipping, have 

 satisfied me of the absence of fibrine. Of course I do not mean to 

 say that a substance more or less analogous to fibrine, or resulting 

 from it, does not exist in the blood of the renal vein and of the supra 

 hepatic veins. It is for the chemist to show what transformation 

 fibrine undergoes in the liver and kidneys. "What I mean is, that 

 usually, if not always, true fibrine, the element endowed with the 

 property of coagulating, spontaneously, or by whipping, with a free 

 supply of air, and at a moderate temperature, disappears from the 

 blood which traverses the liver and the kidneys. But whether this 

 substance has only lost its chief characteristic property, retaining 

 others, or v^hether it has suffered complete modification I do not 

 pretend to say, nor for the present to enquire. 



If it be so that the metamorphosis of fibrine into one or several 

 substances takes place in the liver and kidneys, it must follow in the 

 case of man, considering the quantity of blood which traverses these 

 organs in the course of twenty-four hours, that probably not less 

 than four or five kilogrammes of fibrine undergo transformation 

 daily. Moreover, as the amount of this constituent does not vary 

 in the normal blood of the general circvilation, it must be admitted 

 that there is a daily formation of from four to five kilogrammes of 

 fibrine. This is now to be demonstrated. 



Admitting that the left ventricle is completely emptied at each 

 systole, of which, since the researches of Haller, there can be no 

 doubt, from 120 to 180 grammes of blood are expelled at each con- 



