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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    of 0., who had taken only arrow-root, the oily stain was found not less deep. Tlie serum of P. gave a preci])itate with salt as well before as after the meal, and that from the serum after the meal was far more abundant than could possibly have proceeded merely from the matter in suspension. The scrum of P. before the meal was kept many days in a pliial only in part iillcd, and yet continued quite free of any unpleasant smell, both then and when afterwards poured into an open glass, and allowed to remain till the water had all evaporated. I have met with several other instances of serum resisting putrefaction, but can offer no probable conjecture as to the cause of so remarkable a property. This experiment shows clearly tlie effect of an oily diet in giving milkiness to the serum, since the milkiness was as great from the diet of starch and suet just mentioned, as from the more highly azotized diet of flour and suet mentioned in the last memoir. To illustrate the mode in which the milkiness is occasioned, I added a few drops of oil to the limpid serum of the man who had dined on the arrow-root alone, and on shaking them together I found the liquid become turbid and throw up a kind of cream. This effect, which I had often before observed, I have been in the habit of ascribing to the action of the free alkali of the serum upon the oil forming with it a kind of emulsion. There are indeed good reasons for thinking that the white matter cf milky serum is not a mere emulsion of this kind, but an azotized substance, yet it seems probable that the introduction of an oil into the blood is one, and probably the most frequent cause of the white colour of the serum. It is also worthy of remark, that the effect seems to be only occasioned by oil recently introduced with the food, since, as in the case just mentioned, we often find serum abounding with oil, and yet quite limpid, which must be owing to the oil, whether absorbed from within or from without, having been so adjusted by the processes of the vital economy to the other ingredients of the blood, as no longer to disturb their chemical equilibrium. Reflections not less important are suggested by the fact brought out by both the two last experiments, that the serum of the blood after a fast of sixteen heurs gave a precipitate with salt added to supersa- turation. Was the fast not strictly observed by men who might naturally be supposed to care little for the result of the experiment, and more for their breakfast of which they were deprived? Was the white matter from the supper of the previous night? or, lastly, does all serum give a white precipitate with salt? To this last query, which I had both put to myself, and which had been put to me by others, I had hitherto answered in the negative, relying upon a specimen of beautifully limpid serum which has been in my possession since 1840, and was shown to the Society last spring, and which I believed to have been saturated with salt, when most probably no more had been dissolved in it than was necessary to keep it from decomposing. Now, however, that the inquiry was again forced upon me, I examined a great many specimens of the scrum of blood; and I found all of them, without exception, to give a precipitate with salt, although in very