286 
A MEMOIR ON THE ESSENTIAL ALTERATIONS OF THE 
BLOOD IN THE PRINCIPAL DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
By M. Delafond, Professor of Pathology in the Royal Veterinary 
School at Alfort. 
[Read at the Royal Academy of Medicine, 2d July, 1839.—Reported by 
M. Bouley, Jun ] 
Inquiries with regard to the nature of the blood, the changes 
which it undergoes, and its connexion with health and with dis¬ 
ease, have occupied the attention of the French from the time of 
Pinal to that of the great physiologist Broussais, and from Brous- 
sais to the present time; and there also, as in our country, many 
inquirers had begun to abandon the doctrines of Broussais and 
of Hunter, and to return to a certain reformed and purified humor- 
ism. In order to throw some light on these disputed subjects, a 
prize was offered for the best essay on “ The Essential Alterations 
in the Blood in the principal Domestic Animals.” To meet a 
question like this, no one but a veterinary surgeon was qualified; 
and the society well knew that they had those among them belong¬ 
ing to our profession who were fully qualified to conquer the dif¬ 
ficulties which such a subject necessarily involved. Professor 
Delafond, who had already distinguished himself by his scientific 
works on the Sanitary Police,” and the yet nobler work on ‘‘ Ge¬ 
neral Pathology,” on which he is now engaged, sent a Memoir to 
the Society on the proposed subject. Five members of the aca¬ 
demy, and among them two veterinary surgeons, were appointed 
to determine their respective merits, and their award, and the 
ground of it, have been published. M. Bouley, jun. was the 
reporter. The subject is a most important one, and the report will 
derive additional value from containing the criticism of one veteri¬ 
nary surgeon on the works of another. 
M. Bouley says, that M. Delafond commences by observing that 
a portion of the ground has been already occupied by Dr. Trous¬ 
seau and M. Leblanc, who have studied and described the blood 
in its natural state; and that this fluid has been considered by him¬ 
self under the relations of its colour, smell, taste,' slow or speedy 
coagulation, the respective proportions of its serum in these vary¬ 
ing states—its fibrine, its albumen, its cruor—and that the results 
of these inquiries have been inserted in his “Treatise on Patho¬ 
logy and General Therapeutics,” published in the course of the last 
year, in which he has stated, in a concise manner, the essential 
