342 Dr. A. du Pre Denning and Mr. J. H. Watson. [May 7, 



Except for the different percentages of added anticoagulator, the blood was 

 the same in each case. 



Inasmuch as the curves are not straight lines, it is evident that the 

 viscosity is not directly proportional to the increase of corpuscles, but rather 

 that the former may increase very much more rapidly than the latter — 

 obviously in the present case more so when 0-1 per cent, potassium oxalate 

 was added than when it was - 3 per cent, potassium oxalate. Similar 

 curves, although not of the same curvature, were obtained when other experi- 

 mental values were plotted. There are diverse reasons for the dissimilarity, 

 as will be subsequently evident. In fig. 6, on precisely the same scale, are 



12 -IO 



£ 

 £ 



o 



o 



, 8-IO* 



o 



<0 



t 



■05 



r 02 03 



Viscosity 



Fig. 6.— Curves plotted from Table III. Temp. = 35° 



■04 



Coefficients 



■06 



recorded results obtained with a different blood, namely, that of a young horse 

 (3 years old), whilst the former was that of an old one (about 18 years old). 

 But, though the same strengths of anticoagulators were again added, it is 

 apparent that the increase in viscosity was here much greater for any given 

 increase in the number of corpuscles. Indeed, from the trend of these three 

 curves it may well be supposed that a blood containing upwards of 20 x 10 6 

 corpuscles per cubic millimetre would have taken longer to flow through 

 the particular viscosimeter tubes used than the same quantity of treacle 

 would have done. It may further be observed that the differences of the 

 influence exerted by each of the three anticoagulators are not so strongly 

 marked in this set of curves. 



Such results as the foregoing are obviously in direct contradiction to 

 Hurthle's view which Professor Sherrington quotes in Allbutt's ' Medicine,' 

 and to which reference has already been made, viz., that " the suspension of 



