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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    The globules forming this wheyish appearance are not of the same specific gravity in every case; for though they always, I be- lieve, swim on the serum, and often on water, yet they sometimes sink in water. The white cream that swims on the top of the serum I believe to be formed after the serum is separated from the mass, for if it existed as such prior to this, it would be retained in the coagu- lum, as the red globules are, which is not the fact, and therefore it does not exist in the blood while circulating. I bled a little woman who seemed half an idiot, and was big with child: this happened in the afternoon, about three or four hours alter she had eaten some veal cutlets. The day following I went Dr. Traill, in two other cases, estimated it at 244 and 4-50 percent. (Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ., xvii. 235, 637. April, 1823), and Dr. Christison at five per cent, (lb., October, 1829.) The proportion in healthy serum does not exceed .257 or about one-quarter per cent. Milky serum varies in specific gravity from 1019 to 1024, that of healthy serum being 1029-5. This loss of specific gravity in milky serum is apparently depen- dent on a corresponding deficiency of albumen, and affords an example of the easy convertibility of one animal principle into another under peculiar conditions of the system, somewhat analogous to the conversion of dried fibrin, and perhaps also of albumen, intoadipocere, by digestion with ether and alcohol (see note, p. 52}. Dr. Babington did not observe that the degree of milkiness bore any proportion to the quantity of oily matters present. By agitating serum and ether together, aod decanting and evaporating the latter, the oily matter may easily be obtained. Collected on bibulous paper or amianthus, it may be burned like any other oil. When the quantity of oily matter is very considerable the blood is observed to have a chocolate or milky colour even while flowing from the vessel; which is a clear proof that the oil primarily exists in the blood, or in other words that it is an educt and not a product of the processes for obtaining it. (he Canu in Journ. de Chim. Med., June, 1835.) The circumstances under which milky serum has been observed to exist are so unlike as to render it impossible to assign any probable state of the constitution as leading to its production. (Journal de Pharmacie, No. X.) Marcet, Berzelius, and Thackrah have partaken of the opinion that this appearance is derived from a mixture of unassimilated chyle with the blood ; a conjecture which derives some support from the fact that chyle taken from an animal which has recently fed on fat animal diet presents precisely similar appearances. Mr. Thackrah has affirmed that when the lacteals are fully distended (in dogs), this cream-like appearance is almost always presented in the blood. Indeed, we may generally produce it at will by taking blood a certain time after a full meal. (Op. cit., p. 130.) The same appearance had also frequently been observed in the serum of animals that are very fat. Dr. Prout regards the fatty matter of chyle as incipient albumen. From some cause therefore, such as the absorption of a peculiarly rich chyle after a full meal, or the sudden and temporary increase in the action of the ab- sorbents, an undue proportion of fat is absorbed and carried into the blood, where, being suspended in the serum in the form of an emulsion, it becomes visible. M. Raspail endeavours to account for this appearance upon the supposition that an acid is generated in the blood which saturates the free alkali of the serum and precipitates the albumen. The irregularity of the action of the absorbents is well exemplified by several cases recorded in the 4th volume of the Dublin Journal of Med. and Chem. Science, in which extraordinary quantities of fatty matters were discharged by the bowels. In the Annali Universale a case is related in which thirty pounds weight of fat were discharged from the bowels in twenty-four hours. The patient nearly sunk, and hia skin hung in folds as though all hid fat had been ab- sorbed.] 6*