INJECTING PUS INTO THE VEINS OF ANIMALS. 109 
— “The simple experiment of mixing some pus with healthy 
recently drawn blood will at once show that such a com- 
bination cannot circulate in the living body. It will be 
found that the blood coagulates round the globules of pus, 
and forms a solid mass, which will adhere to the first surface 
with which it comes in contact.” 
It must be evident that, in this sentence, the relative 
“ which” refers to its antecedent “ solid mass,” and not to 
the globules of pus ; and it would be therefore most unfair to 
draw from it the additional conclusion, that no time was 
occupied in forming the solid mass, or that pus could, under 
no circumstances, be made to pass along the blood-vessels. 
If such an inference could have been drawn from a single 
sentence, it might surely have been corrected by other 
statements in the same work ( f On Phlebitis/ &c.) Thus, at 
page 43, I write, that the experiments show that pus has a 
tendency to coagulate the blood ; and that, from this cause, 
“its progress is arrested in some part of the circulating 
system ;” and at page 24 I state that, “ where purulent or 
other fluids have been directly injected into the blood, the 
examination of the blood or of the vessels will by no means 
indicate the presence of foreign matter, nor will inflammation 
of the vein through which the fluid has passed be by any 
means invariably produced.” Finally, I have myself detailed 
four cases in the work referred to, in which pus was injected 
into the veins without producing any characteristic local 
morbid appearances. It appears, therefore, strange to me, 
that Mr. Gamgee should have inferred from my writings 
that I was of opinion that pus could never be made to pass 
into the circulation, and that he should have endeavoured to 
prove, in supposed opposition to my experiments, that “ the 
circulation of pus w T ith the blood is perfectly possible.” 
“To argue, as Mr. Lee does,” continues Mr. Gamgee, 
“ from the fact that, out of the body, blood coagulates 
round pus, therefore such a combination cannot circulate 
in the living body, is about as warrantable as it would be to 
predicate from the observation, that pure blood coagulates in 
a basin, it therefore cannot remain fluid in the ventricles of 
the heart.” 
With this criticism, though somewhat complicated, and 
manifestly inappropriate, as applied to a peculiarity in the 
mode of coagulation, 1 have, on the whole, not much fault 
to find, since Mr. Gamgee has himself furnished the evi- 
dence that vitiated blood, to which alone my experiments 
referred, will not always remain fluid in the ventricles of the 
living heart. 
