Farther observations on the state of the blood after taking food.

  • Buchanan, Andrew, 1798-1882.
Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Farther observations on the state of the blood after taking food. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    without whiteness, and no farther examination of its • qualities was made except ascertaining that it was fermentable on the addition of yeast. But it was desirable to know whether a diet of Starch, although it did not render the serum of the blood milky, might not, as in the cases just detailed, introduce with it a white matter precipitable by salt. A?irow-Eoot.—Accordingly on the 15th of June, M., after fasting the usual time, had a meal of arrow-root, prepared with water, and seasoned with spice. He took it readily, but not so much of it as was taken on the last occasion. He was hied at two, and four hours after the meal. The serum on both occasions was transparent, and with a greenish tinge. That from the blood last drawn gave a precipitate with salt, hut not so abundnnt as in several former cases. The other specimen gave a mirch more abundant precipitate, in part rising to the surface. This last also, on being filtered, left oily stains upon the filtering paper, as I have since found the serum of the blood very frequently do. I found the white precipitate from salt to he completely resoluble on adding as much water as brings the solution somewhat under the point of saturation. On again saturating with salt, the precipitate falls, and on again adding water, it is redissolved, and so for several times in succession. Does, then. Starch give a white precipitate with salt like the azotized principles? Before drawing this conclusion there are some causes of fallacy to be guarded against. The white matter may have proceeded from food taken before the fast, and the more abundant precipitate in the blood first drawn seemed to countenance this conjecture. The fast may not have been strictly observed. Both these sources of error will be precluded by drawing a little blood before the meal, and test- ing the serum with salt. Lastly, arrow-root contains a certain pro- portion of azotized matter, which, in some specimens examined by him, Dr. R. D, Thomson found to be about three per cent. This experiment appearing to me to be an important one, I repeated it twice, as will be seen below; and on one of these occasions a fast of upwards of twenty-four hours was rigidly observed before the meal, so as to remove entirely the second objection mentioned above, and diminish the first as much as I believe practicable. Arrow-Root—Starch and Suet.—Ou the 5th of July, 0. aucl P., after a last of sixteen hours, which I had no reason to suspect was not faithfully observed, had, the former a mess of spiced arrow-root prepared with water, and the latter a pudding composed of two parts common starch and one of suet. They were both bled im- mediately before the meal, and again at two, and at four hours after it. The serum from the blood of O. was, the whole three times, quite transparent. On testing it with salt, the serum of the blood drawn before the meal gave a preci- pitate nearly as abundant as that from the blood drawn after the meal. The blood taken from P. before the meal gave a scrum which was quite limpid, while the blood taken after the meal gave on both occasions a very white scrum; thatfronr the first bleeding after the meal threw up spontaneously a white cream, which on the third day was as abundant as I had ever seen it; that again from the second bleeding, although eipially white, yielded 7io cream. On filtering the creamy scrum, the filter- ing paper after being dried was found stained with oil, which it was natural to think was occasioned by the suet; but on filtering the corresponding lim]ud scrum