356 
REVIEW— MR. TURNER’S EXPERIMENTS. 
** Hitherto,” continues Mr. Turner, “ when physiologists have 
imprisoned the blood of a living animal in any large trunk — the 
carotid, for instance — of the space of two inches, between two 
ligatures, and have allowed three or four hours to elapse, they 
have invariably found the blood coagulated , and of a dark colour, 
upon slitting open the vessel. But when I undertake a sudden 
seizure of such a portion of artery of a living animal with 
the new instrument, and cause an instantaneous imprison- 
ment of its contents in transitu, a result totally different is 
obtained.” 
For this result we must turn back to Part I of the “ Register,” 
published in 1839. 
Herein, at page 43, Mr. Turner writes as follows : — u I lay 
bare the carotid artery of a living animal, availing myself of the 
aid of peculiar machinery, and isolate about two inches of the 
vessel, with its contents, instantaneously , and thereby catch the 
containing (contained?) fluid flying or in its transit, and, after 
allowing it to remain quiescent in a temperature of 60° for three or 
four hours, then slit the vessel open, what do I find — a fluid ? 
Yes. Is it blood? 1 do not know. It appears to the eye like 
condensed steam or vapour, of a bright red hue, extremely thin 
and transparent : the colouring particles gravitate, and a limpid 
fluid floats on them. Not a particle of coagulum is to be seen 
nor detected hours afterwards : the red particles adhere tena- 
ciously to the dish, but the delicate fluid evaporates rather 
quickly.” 
For the idea of entrapping the circulating blood within its 
vessels in an instantaneous manner, and thereby procuring it, for 
the purposes of examination and experiment, in a condition ap- 
proximating the nearest possible to the natural one, and for the 
invention of a machine effecting so desirable tin object in a 
manner, to all appearance, extremely satisfactorily, let the 
results turn out whatever they may, it must on all hands be 
allowed that Mr. Turner deserves some credit. It will also be 
admitted, as might, perhaps by some have been anticipated, 
that Mr. Turner’s experiment has exhibited the blood in a more 
attenuated or rarefied state than, out of the body, it was, per- 
haps, ever seen before ; owing to the suddenness with which all 
connexion was cut off between the portion imprisoned and the 
mass of the circulating blood. After four hours — nay, after 
four-and-twenty-hours — this blood had not coagulated : a pheno- 
menon Hunter would have ascribed to the suddenness with which 
it had been deprived of its vitality, but one that Mr. Turner 
attributes to the retention of the “ blood’s gas.” In the former 
u Register,” Mr. Turner gave us to understand that the present 
one should contain proofs of the presence of this gas ; but, we 
