War nursing : what every woman should know Red Cross lectures / by Charles Richet ; translated by H. de Vere Beauclerk.

  • Charles Richet
Date:
[1918]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: War nursing : what every woman should know Red Cross lectures / by Charles Richet ; translated by H. de Vere Beauclerk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    them is a layer of white corpuscles. Fibrin forms more slowly. Finally, on the surface is a layer of serum. All these phenomena are very clearly observed in the blood of a horse, where coagulation is slow. In the case of the blood of other animals the different I layers are not given time to deposit separately. The Î fibrin in precipitating carries with it the red and white corpuscles, so that instead of four successive layers we have onlv two—viz., a solid mass below, which is the clot, and a layer of liquid floating on the top, which is the serum. The problem of the blood’s coagulation has at all times excited the curiosity and genius of physiology. For a long while only negative solutions were arrived at. It was proved that neither temperature, nor oxygen, nor ]iressure, nor atmospheric dust, had any influence in the matter. The sole factor playing a predominant rôle—a fact quite well established to-day—is the chemical activity of the leucocytes, or white corpuscles of the blood. The white corpuscles, which in normal conditions, and so long as they remain in contact with the epithelial wall of the bloodvessels, secrete nothing, become irri¬ tated when separated from it. Then they all at once secrete a substance that precipitates fibrin—i.6., the fibrin solidifies under the influence of the ferment secreted by the white corpuscles. We can consider the white corpuscles as tiny creatures independent of ourselves, which, while the blood is in circulation, explore the walls of the bloodvessels un¬ ceasingly in order to make sure that they are in order. As long as the walls are normal, they are satisfied. But if they chance to find one that is abnormal and out