SCIENCE LETTER FROM PARIS. ' 419 



Normally speaking, the blood is rarely primitively diseased ; it becomes altered, 

 however, as the materials which produce and feed it, become deranged. Blood 

 has no malady peculiar to itself, but it is the mirror which reflects all diseases of 

 the organs. 



Blood is the vehicle of irrigation and excretion; when drawn from a vein 

 it rapidly separates into a white, solid part, the clot or fibrine, and a liquid part, 

 consisting of red and white globules, and the serum itself composed of albumen, 

 salts, and a multitude of organic substances and gas soluble in water. But they 

 are ihe red globules which attract most attention; they are composed of a kind 

 of white envelope, called globuline, a substance resembling fibrine, and a red 

 coloring matter designated hemaglobine. The mission of this latter substance 

 is to unite with the oxygen of the air when it arrives in the sanguinary vessels of 

 the lungs. The red globules are thus the principal agents of the phenomena of 

 combustion — the process that sustains life. Experiments attest, that the more 

 the globules contain of the red material, the more capable is their role of nutri- 

 tion. Formerly these red globules were counted, to determine the richness of 

 the blood ; that process is now superseded by the test of the power of the coloring 

 matter to absorb oxygen. Hitherto bleeding was the grand panacea for all di». 

 eases. Botelli laid down, the more water we draw from a well the more that 

 which follows will be pure. This figure was the theory perhaps of Sangrado in 

 Gil Bias ^ who maintained, "one has ever enough of blood to live." 



Professor Hayem has demonstrated that blood cannot be taken from the 

 body with impunity; repeated bleedings beget chronic anemia, the blood be- 

 comes diluted, the number of red globules diminish, require a long time to re- 

 form, and contain less of the important red coloring substance, that is to say, of 

 life. Thus the majority of the organic combustions get weaker; less oxygen is 

 absorbed, less carbonic acid eliminated, fat augments, owing to the work of dis- 

 assimilation being impeded. At the same time the assimilation of nitrogenous 

 substances by the cells ceases; these substances are destroyed in the nourishing 

 fluids, even without filling the office of nutrition, and the residue, such as urea, 

 augments ; hence, gout, rheumatism, diabetes, etc. Similar trouble ensues in 

 the assimilation of phosphoric acid, which forms an integral part of all living 

 cells. 



It was once held, that the more blood extracted, the more blood would be 

 re-made; similarly as the more an infant suckled its nurse, the more the milk 

 would be abundant. But there is a limit to the re-formation of the blood. As 

 bleedings weaken the system, if the blood happens to contain any poisonous ele- 

 ment, as an infection of purulent nature, the less the constitution can struggle 

 against the disease. However, bleeding is excellent in the case of asphyxia or 

 derangements of the nervous system. Indeed, bleeding is not sufficiently resort- 

 ed to in the treatment of apoplexy and convulsions as the consequence of ac- 

 couchment; extracting under such circumstances say seven ounces of blood, acts 

 as a fillip on the circulation. Professor Hayem has obtained very important re- 

 sults from the transfusion of blood, but that process must be supplemented by 



