COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD. 
697 
examined three human bodies with regard to this point, and 
in every case have found my idea confirmed. One of these 
was a woman, aged 70, who had been a patient under Dr. 
Gillespie's care at the Infirmary, with senile gangrene. The 
right cavities of the heart were full of blood, and contained 
large clots buffed on their upper surface, and the large vessels 
also contained abundant soft coagula, but a small vein from 
one of the thighs yielded fluid blood, which coagulated slowly 
in a saucer The body was examined about thirty-six hours 
after death. The other two had been patients under Dr. 
Gairdner’s care, also in the Royal Infirmary. One of these 
was a man about 30, who had died of meningitis. The heart 
had been removed before I saw the body, but the large 
vessels, such as the external iliac vein, contained coagula, 
whereas all the small veins which I observed contained per- 
fectly fluid blood, which, however, had lost the power of 
coagulation. The third case was that of a young man, 
aged 21, who died of a complication of medical and surgical 
complaints. It was nearly forty-eight hours before the body 
was examined. The cornea was perfectly clear, and there was 
no appearance of any incipient decomposition. This case 
was investigated very carefully ; and as the subject is novel, 
it may be well to give the results in detail: — I was not pre- 
sent when the heart was removed, but Dr. Defabeck (resident 
physician under Dr. Gairdner) informs me that the cavities 
contained coagula buffed on their upper surface. The vena 
cava, the right iliac veins (common, internal, and external), 
and the femoral vein for about four inches down the thigh, 
contained soft coagula, mixed with thick, dark, fluid blood. 
The upper part of the axillary vein, and the internal jugular 
of the same side, also contained some soft, dark coagula, but 
the deep epigastric, the femoral vein below the part before 
mentioned, the internal saphena, and a smaller venous 
branch in the thigh, the axillary, except at the upper part, 
the cephalic and a subcutaneous vein of the throat, all con- 
tained fluid blood, which coagulated in about half-an-hour 
after being shed ; and I noticed in the thigh that the blood 
from a small venous branch coagulated more quickly than 
that from the saphena. In the veins of the lower limb, both 
large and small, there were curious strings pf highly elastic 
tawny fibre, but these had evidently been deposited long 
before death. Similar threads were also present in the veins 
of the neck and in the aorta, external iliac and femoral 
arteries, which, however, contained but little blood, and no 
post-mortem coagula. I did not test the coagulability of the 
blood in the arteries, nor in a branch of the internal iliac 
vein, which also contained fluid blood. 
