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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    I heated some of the whey, and found it formed a coagulable mat- ter, which floated in flakes in a fluid, which did not coagulate by this means. As this less coagulable fluid is a substance hitherto not taken notice of, and makes perhaps as interesting a part as any of the whole mass of blood, it will be necessary to be more descriptive in giving an account of it than of the other parts. Urine does not coagulate by heat; but as I found that it coagulated with the ex- tract of Goulard,* and as I also knew that this extract coagulated the whole mass of the serum, I conceived that the fluid in question might be similar to urine, and that the coagulation of the serum might be owing to the coagulation of this part: I therefore put the fluid to this test, and found that it was coagulated by the extract, which led to a series of experiments. As several fluids, apparently different from each other, appear to be thrown out from the blood on many occasions, I wished to see how far they consisted of the common serum, viz., of a pretty equal quantity of matter coagulable by heat, or principally of that coagu- lable by Goulard's extract; I therefore collected the several kinds; not only those which may be called natural, but also those pro- ceeding from disease, which appear more like serum than the others. Of the natural, I took the aqueous humor of the eye, and first heated it in a spoon, to see what quantity of coagulable matter by heat was in it, and I found it became gently wheyish: therefore it had a small portion of matter coagulable by heat; but upon adding the extract to it, it coagulated immediately. The same exactly happened with the water in the ventricles of the brain; and also with the tears. Water was taken from the leg of a dropsical boy, who was ex- tremely reduced by a compound fracture of the opposite thigh-bone, which water was much clearer than any serum. Upon heating it in a spoon over a candle, it became a little wheyish, and had a few flakes of coagulum floating in it. The water from the abdomen of a lady, which was a little wheyish, coagulated before it gave out its air; but the coagulum was not one-half of its quantity. In another rase of ascites, the water coagulated wholly, although not to a firm coagulum. Water drawn from the abdomen of a gentle- man, which was pretty clear, when held over a lamp to coagulate, became at first wheyish. The liquor amnii has but very little coagulable matter in it. In coagulating all the above kinds of serum by heat, and taking the incoagulable parts and putting extract of Goulard to them, they coagulated immediately.! • What led me to the above knowledge was mixing this extract of Goulard with solutions of gum arahic in water for injections, when I found that the whole always became a solid mass; while injections with saccharum saturni had not that effect. I then tried it upon many other vegetable juices, and found it co- agulated every one of them. In some of these experiments I put some of the compounds into a vessel wheie there was some urine, and I found that when the extract had been in too large a quantity, the urine was also coagulated. t [These are merely examples of the precipitation of albumen or mucus by means of Goulard's extract in variable proportions ]