A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    periments have been made on the blood: after a portion of blood had been frozen, and then thawed, it has again been frozen with a similar quantity of fresh blood, drawn from the same person, and that which had undergone this process froze again much faster than the fresh blood.* As all the experiments I had made upon the freezing of animals, with a view to see whether it was possible to restore the actions of life when they were again thawed, were made upon whole animals, and as I never saw life return by thawing,f I wished to ascertain how far parts were, in this respect, similar to the whole, especially since it was asserted, and with some authority, that parts of a man maybe frozen, and may afterwards recover: for this purpose I made the following experiments upon an animal of the same order with ourselves. In January, 1777, I mixed salt and ice till the cold was about 0; and on the side of the vessel containing them was a hole, through which I introduced the ear of a rabbit. To carry off the heat as fast as possible, the ear was held between two flat pieces of iron, that sunk further into the mixture than the ear; the ear remained in the mixture nearly an hour, in which time the part projecting into the vessel became stiff; when taken out, and cut into, it did not bleed; and a part being cut off by a pair of scissors, flew from be- tween the blades like a hard chip. It soon after thawed, and began to bleed, and became very flaccid, so as to double upon itself, having lost its natural elasticity. When it had been out of the mixture nearly an hour, it became warm, and this warmth increased to a considerable degree; it also began to thicken, in consequence of inflammation ; while the other ear continued of its usual temper- ature. On the following day the frozen ear was still warm ; and it retained its heat and thickness for many days after. About a week after this, the mixture in the vessel being the same as in the former experiment, I introduced both ears of the same rabbit through the hole, and froze them both ; the sound one however froze first, pro- bably from its being considerably colder at the beginning, and pro- bably, too, from its powers not being so easily excited as those of the other: when withdrawn, they both soon thawed and became warm, and the fresh ear thickened, as the other had done before. These changes in the parts do not always so quickly take place; for on repeating these experiments on the ear of another rabbit, till it became as hard as a board, it was longer in thawing than in the former experiment, and much longer before it became warm; in about two hours, however, it became a little warm, and the fol- lowing day it was very warm, and thickened. In the spring, 1776, I observed that the cocks I had in the country had their combs smooth, with an even edge, and not so broad as * Vide Corrie on the Vitality of the Blood, p. 45. f [Leeches have heen frozen, and yet recovered. See note, Principles of Sur- gery, p. 76.] 10*