184 FIBRINE IN THE HUMAN BODY. 



of the fibrine of the blood to take place. Now admitting that there 

 are 2 parts in a thousand of fibrine in lymph, there would be 10 

 grammes of it derived from the liver and the kidneys. But double 

 this quantity, or treble it, and only an insignificant quantity would 

 result when compared with that which represents the quantity of 

 of fibrine destroyed, or rather metamorphosed, in one day, in the 

 liver and the kidneys. In fact, what is this quantity of 10, 20, or 30 

 grammes in comparison with 4000 or 5000 grammes ? The trifling 

 amount of fibrine, therefore, which passes by the way of the lymph 

 through the kidneys and the liver may be safely neglected in the 

 question under consideration. 



If there be a daily transformation of 4 or 5 kilogrammes of fibrine 

 in the blood traversing the digestive organs, the kidneys and the 

 liver, it is manifest that there must be a formation of a similar 

 amount of this element of the blood, since the proportion of fibrine 

 in the normal condition remains nearly the same in the blood of the 

 arteries and superficial veins. 



But where is this large amount of fibrine produced ? Experiments 

 made in 1851, by myself, and the observations of Lehmann, two 

 years since, appear to indicate the chief site of its formation. I 

 have demonstrated that fibrine is developed in the limbs of the 

 lower animals and of man, when separated from the body, if we 

 inject them with defibrinated blood. Moreover, I have found that 

 a larger quantity is formed, when the limbs are galvanized, during 

 the process of injection. As the amount of fibrine produced under 

 these circumstances is extremely small, and as, on the other hand, 

 chemists had almost universally allowed that a larger amount of 

 fibrine, both in man and the lower animals, is to be found in arterial 

 than in venous blood, I was unable to draw any conclusion from mj 

 experiments. Lehmann has since shewn, however, that comparative 

 experiments are fallacious in this respect, and that the blood of the 

 lesser veins contains a notably larger amount of fibrine than arterial 

 blood. 



