PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL AGENTS UPON BLOOD. 
717 
Eig. 4. 
When non-defibrinated blood is employed, and the ether allowed to evaporate, the 
blood solidifies, and in so doing frequently crystallizes ; but strange to say the crystals 
are quite different in form from those obtained by chloroform from the same blood. 
They are long needles, twelve times as long as broad, and 
are sometimes so abundant that they fill up the whole 
field of the microscope. The crystals are not usually so 
much coloured as those of chloroform. They too are most 
copious in the blood of animals poisoned by the anaesthetic. 
In some healthy bloods I have entirely failed in detecting 
them. The best are obtained from the blood of the dog *. 
Ether, as already said, destroys the corpuscles more than 
chloroform. 
It is curious to notice how the effects of different sub- 
stances upon blood vary. I thought, for example, that 
alcohol would act like ether upon blood, whereas to my surprise its action much more 
closely resembled that of chloroform, although only in a mitigated degree. Notwith- 
standing that alcohol cannot properly be regarded in the light of an anaesthetic, I shall 
take the liberty of here introducing an experiment upon it, seeing that it was performed 
on a portion of the same blood as served for the last two examples, and was conducted 
under precisely similar circumstances. Five per cent, of pure alcohol was employed. 
Crystals obtained from blood by 
means of ether. 
Alcohol. 
Gas from ox-blood plus alcohol, after twenty-four hours’ action, on 100 per cent, of 
atmospheric air : — 
No. 62. — In 100 parts of air. 
Oxygen . . . 
Carbonic acid . 
Nitrogen . 
16-591 1 
2-38j r ° tal oxygen 18-9 1 
81-03 
By placing the results of these last three experiments in a tabular form the difference 
they present will be better seen. 
Oxygen. 
Carbonic acid. 
Nitrogen. 
Total oxygen. 
In 100 parts of air from 
Pure blood 
10-58 
3-33 
86-09 
14-91 
Ditto plus ether 
Ditto plus alcohol 
16-59 
3-40 
2-38 
81-03 
18-97 
It is thus seen that while the action of ether is to increase, or at least not to diminish 
* Magnificently large prismatic crystals are readily obtained by adding equal parts of ether to the blood of 
dogs poisoned by the vapour of chloroform. They are of a fine red colour, and many of them appear to be 
formed of bundles of needle-shaped crystals. Sometimes almost the whole blood crystallizes. 
