221 



Abstract of labours in Rational Pathology since the commence- 

 ment of the year 1839. By Professor Henle of Zurich * 



Pus in the blood. 



Pus cannot be recognised in the blood, because its glo- 

 bules are not distinguishable from those of lymph. Al- 

 though Gulliver found the pus globules large, more irregu- 

 lar, generally darker-coloured, and more numerous, and often 

 hanging together in clusters, while he always found the lymph 

 globules swimming singly and detached, yet these characters 

 are not certain ; for the size of both kinds of globules varies 

 according to the stage of their development, and according 

 to the thickness of the plasma, and indeed smooth and an- 

 gular globules occur near each other in both fluids, and 

 Henle has often seen lymph globules clustered together in 

 healthy blood, and their number vary much. (It is greatly 

 increased by loss of blood.) Donne says, that blood contain- 

 ing pus is turned into a jelly by ammonia, like pus itself: 

 but this is only the case when the number of pus globules is 

 very great ; and it seems likely that this may also be the case, 

 when there are many lymph globules present. U Heritier 

 has proved Mandl's method of distinguishing pus-containing 

 from pure blood, by the softness of the fibrinous coagulum 

 to be insufficient. Yet there is no doubt of the occurrence 

 of pus in the blood (Pyaemia,) and we know too that it can- 

 not pass into uninjured vessels ; and people have thus come to 

 the conclusion, that it is formed within the veins themselves 

 by their participating in the inflammatory process. 



According to this explanation, the pus globules, when mix- 

 ed with the blood are supposed by their large size to block 

 up the capillaries, and set up a new inflammation. (Second- 

 ary and metastatic abscess). But many facts are opposed 



* Abridged from the Zeitschrift fur Rationelle Medizin of 1844, and translated 

 for the Calcutta Journal of Natural History. 



