TRANSFUSION. 
145 
portions of substances of so poisonous a nature, that the old 
practitioners in medicine were, on that account, wholly deterred 
from the use of them ! 
But, without any further reasoning, we may adduce an expe¬ 
riment made some years ago, at the Veterinary College; which, 
in our mind at least, sets the subject beyond the pale of dispu¬ 
tation. (Premising that glanders is a contagious disease, and 
one that is at all times communicable by inoculation.) The blood 
of a horse affected with that malady was transfused into the 
veins of an ass in good health, previously prepared for the influx 
by a copious bloodletting. In the usual interval of time, the ass 
exhibited every symptom characteristic of glanders; and shortly 
after died under the deleterious consequences of it.—This leads 
me to make a few remarks on 
Transfusion , 
By which is meant the transmission of blood from the vessels of 
one animal into those of another. No sooner was the circulation 
of the blood admitted to be founded in truth, than some fertile 
imaginations conceived that much benefit might accrue from 
transfusion. 
“The first attempts were made upon animals, and they had 
complete success. A dog having lost a great part of its blood, 
received by transfusion that of a sheep, and it became well. 
Another dog, old and deaf, regained by this means the use of 
his hearing, and seemed to recover his youth. A horse, twenty- 
six years old, having received into his veins the blood of four 
lambs, recovered his strength.” 
Flattering as these experimental results were, it ought not to 
surprise us that man himself soon became the subject of a simi¬ 
lar trial. “ Denys and Emerez, the one a French physician, the 
other a surgeon, were the first who ventured to try it. They in¬ 
troduced into the veins of a young man, an idiot, the blood of a 
calf, in greater quantity than that which had been drawn from 
them, and he appeared to recover his reason. A leprous person, 
and another with a quartan ague, were also cured by these means ; 
and several other transfusions were made upon healthy persons 
without any disagreeable result.” 
However, some sad events happened to calm the general en¬ 
thusiasm caused by these repeated successes. “The young idiot 
we mentioned, fell into a state of madness a short time after the 
experiment. He was submitted a second time to the experiment; 
and he was immediately seized with a h&maturia , and died in a 
state of sleepiness and torpor. A young prince of the blood 
royal became also the victim of it; and the parliament of Paris 
von. hi. 3 o 
