Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Blood is most probably as much alike in all animals as the muscle of one animal is like that of another, only with this difference, that some animals have not that part which gives it the red colour; but the other parts, as the lymph and serum, are, as far as I yet know, the same in all8. Transfusion of the blood of one animal into the vessels of another proves, to a certain degree, the uniform nature of the blood, for, as far as these experiments have been urged, no alteration has been observed11. » [Berzelius has verified this observation, as far as regards the serum and fibrin in the higher orders of animals, but the globules are found to vary very considerably in size, shape, number, and composition in the different species. The same authority has also stated that there are two thirds less of the muriates in ox-blood than in that from the human subject, but a larger proportion of nitrogen. (Med.-Chir. Trans., vol. iii.) This latter fact would, indeed, be very remarkable if true, considering that man lives for the most part on a highly azotised food, whereas the ox lives on food which con- tains no nitrogen at all. The recent researches, however, of Macairc and Marcet (Mem. de la Soc. de Phy. et d'Hist. Nat. de Gen&ve, v. 389.) have not only shown the error of this particular fact, but, as far as concerns the ultimate analysis of the blood, have established the almost entire identity between that of herbivorous and that of carnivorous animals. Certain minor differences in colour, in the relative proportions of crassamentum and serum, in the halitus which exhales from fresh drawn blood, and in the period of coagu- lation, have been pointed out by Thackrah; but these are not greater than what may occur in the blood of the same individual taken from two different vessels, or at two different periods of life. (Enquiry into the Nature and Properties of the Blood, by C. T. Thackrah, 2nd Edit. p. 149.)] b [The honour of this discovery has been sharply contested between the French and English. From certain passages in the classics it seems highly probable that the practice was not unknown to the ancients; at any rate the operation was described by Libavius at least fifty years before the English and French controversy commenced. (In Def. Synt. Arc. Chy. contra II. Schneumannam, Act. 2. p. 8. Edit. Francof. a. 1615.) The operation of transfusion was first performed on the human subject in France, by MM. Denis and Emmerets, on the 15th of June, 1667, and repeated in England by Drs. Lower and King on the 23rd of November of the same year. It speedily grew into great favour; but in consequence of the fatal and dangerous effects which ensued in several cases, it was interdicted by a sentence of the Chastelet, and soon afterwards fell into desuetude. The blood of calves and sheep was generally employed in these operations, and, so far as appears, the blood of the human subject was never thought of. In 1785 Dr. Harwood revived the inquiry, by making it the subject of his inaugural thesis, which he supported by many interesting experiments on dogs, which he per- formed in public. (Phil. Trans. Abr., vol. i. p. 185, note.) MM. Prevost and Dumas, Dr. Leacock, and finally Dr. Blundell followed in the same track. It was ascertained by Dr. Harwood, that when an animal was bled to complete syn- cope, it was capable of being resuscitated, by the transfusion of fresh drawn-blood from another animal of the same or a different species ; although when the latter was em- ployed, the animal generally perished before the sixth day. MM. Prevost and Dumas ascertained, that although the respiration remained calm, the pulse became remarkably accelerated, the heat of the body was rapidly dissipated, and the dejections and urine became mucous and bloody, and continued so in many instances until death. They found also, that when blood containing spherical globules was injected into a bird, it died, as if poisoned, with violent symptoms of distress of the nervous system, which ef- fects uniformly occurred, whether the precaution of bleeding the animal beforehand](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996623_0003_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
