Volume 1

The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1903-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    801/872 (page 735)
    momentary exposure to the action of the oxidizing suhstance. A sudden arrest of the supply of the latter to the blood, as occurs when a large dose of venom causes the functions of the adrenal system to cease, for example, accounts for the liquid blood witnessed under such circumstances. The tissues, con- tinuing the consumption of oxygen, soon deplete the blood of this gas, leaving none to carry on the partial oxidation of the fibrinogen to which the formation of fibrin is due. We have evidence here, therefore, through the fact alluded to by Metch- nikoff, that coagulation occurs in the extravasated blood, of the presence in it of at least a small quantity of oxidizing sub- stance. As we view the composition of this extravasated blood, therefore, it embodies (1) fibrinogen, (2) the oxidizing sub- stance, and (3) the cytase, including its trypsin, as factors of the process through which bacteria and blood-cells are disin- tegrated. An application of the principles we have submitted will serve to illustrate our meaning. Eeferring to the labors of Bordet, MetchnikofE^ states that whenever the serum of a prepared animal is deprived of its hsemolytic properties by heat- ing to 55° or 56° C, this property can be restored to it with certainty by adding to it a little normal serum incapable itself of causing haemolysis. The heated serum of prepared animals completely loses its power of dissolving its red corpuscles, but it preserves its other acquired property of agglutinating the latter. The red corpuscles in voluminous masses visible with the naked eye remain intact indefinitely if allowed to remain in the prepared and heated serum. But if a small proportion of normal blood (obtained from many species of vertebrates) is added, dissolution of the corpuscles soon follows. There is initiated under these conditions a process in which two sub- stances take part, one of which was present in the heated serum of the prepared animal, and the other in the non-heated normal serum. The first of these substances which resists not only the temperature of 55° to 56° C, but stands, without undergoing alteration, heating up to 60° to 65° C. corresponds with the intermediary substance of M. Ehrlich [our oxidizing substance]. > Metchnikoff: hoc. cit., p. 97.