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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    with microscopes, the red globules are seen moving with different velocities in different parts, and taking retrograde or lateral mo- tions, according as mechanical obstruction or those arising from contractions in the vessels may happen to retard or change their motion. They are heavier than the coagulating lymph, and of course heavier than the serum ; which is known by their falling to the bottom of the cup when blood is taken out of a blood-vessel. This allows the coagulating lymph to be seen more or less at the top, and produces on the surface various hues, according as the red globules subside. When they subside much, the buff is then of a yellowish colour ; when the buff is thin at the top, then we have the red globules shining through it, of various colours, such as blue purple,* &c, according to the reflection or refraction, which is according to the depths. In healthy blood, however, the coagulum is commonly formed before the red part has time to subside ; but we may always ob- serve that the lower part of the mass contains more red globules than the top, and will sink more quickly in water. The red glo- bules do not retain their globular form in every fluid, but are dis- solved and diffused through the whole; and this probably happens sooner in water than in any other fluid. The red globules are not soluble in the serum of the blood, yet it is not the only fluid in which they are insoluble; the urine does not dissolve them; but urine might be supposed to be principally serum. Water itself, however, ceases to dissolve them when saturated with many of the neutral salts, or with some of the acids. The red globules are not soluble in water mixed with common sea-salt, sal ammoniac, Epsom-salt, nitre (potassoc nitras), Glauber's-salt (sodse sulphas), soluble tartar (potassa tartaras), Lymington-tartar ; nor in the fixed vegetable alkalies when saturated with fixed air. As they do not dissolve in the blood. If a portion of the albumen of a pullet's egg, he says, be placed in an excess of hydrochloric acid, it will at first form a white coagulum, but presently it will be dissolved by the acid acquiring at the same time a violet colour, which passes into blue. If the hydrochloric acid be then poured off, and left to evapo- rate spontaneously, it will deposit a white powder, which, when observed by the mi- croscope, will be seen to consist of spherical globules, of uniform size, and which the most practised eye might well mistake for the globules of the blood. The same phenomenon is also noticed when lactic acid is saturated by barytes; the precipitation in this case is composed of beautiful globules, some of which even show a nucleus in their centre. {Org. Chem. transl. by Dr. Townsend (p. 406). Dr. Elliotson observes, that one takes breath while readingM. Raspail, after the strange and varying statements of so many experimenters, especially of those who use microscopes {Physiology, p. 14>i); but the justness of this eulo- gium may I think be questioned. M. Raspail has entirely failed to account, 1st, for the colouring matter of the red globules; 2d, for their precipitation; 3d, for the difficulty with which they are regenerated, although the regeneration of the albu- men is easily effected; 4th, for their importance in relation to the function of respiration, and the production of animal heat; 5th, for their various forms and sizes in different animals, and their uniformity in these respects in the same ani- mal; and (ith, tor the presence of iron in one and not in the other.] * The blood in the veins, when near the skin, gives the same hues. 7