Blood : a study in general physiology / by Lawrence J. Henderson.

  • Lawrence Joseph Henderson
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Blood : a study in general physiology / by Lawrence J. Henderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bility of conditions. . . . The unique ensemble of prop¬ erties of water, carbonic acid, and the three elements constitutes, among the properties of matter, the fittest en¬ semble of characteristics for durable mechanism.1,159 For these facts I have no explanation to offer. All that I can say is that they exist, that they are antecedent to organic adaptations, that they resemble them, and that they can hardly be due to chance. The properties of water and of carbon dioxide are es¬ pecially related to the theory of milieu interieur. We shall now return to this theory, which is perhaps destined to play an even greater role in the future than it has in the past. The action of blood, regarded as environment of the tissues, may be considered as integrative. This is true alike for the first approximation which regards the physico-chemical properties of the system as constant, and for the closer approximation which takes into ac¬ count normal gradients and the changes which accompany activity and disease. It has, however, not been customary to take into account the integrative activity of blood con¬ sidered as a physico-chemical system. Such activity has hardly been attributed to this substance otherwise than in its action as a vehicle for the transfer of hormones which, together with the integrative action of the nervous system, includes the modes of integration that are usually studied. An exception may be noted in the participation of blood in the control of breathing, and other exceptions might be cited, but the general problem has not been con¬ sidered. As a means of beginning the investigation, a general¬ ized description of the physico-chemical system may be attempted. There are two phases, plasma and cells. There are eight components. Four of these, water, carbon di¬ oxide, hydrochloric acid, and oxygen, are present in both phases and, as the state of the equilibrium changes, in some form or other pass back and forth between the two 169 L. J. Henderson, The Order of Nature, chap. X, Cambridge, Mass., 1917.
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