Clinical diagnosis : the bacteriological, chemical, and microscopical evidence of disease / by Rudolf v. Jaksch ; translated from the second German edition by James Cagney ; with an appendix by Wm. Stirling.

  • Cagney James.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical diagnosis : the bacteriological, chemical, and microscopical evidence of disease / by Rudolf v. Jaksch ; translated from the second German edition by James Cagney ; with an appendix by Wm. Stirling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    THE BLOOD. Every change in the quantity or the quality of the blood itself is apt to be attended with serious disturbance of the system; further, the blood is the carrier and distributer through the body of nearly all the poisons, organic and inorganic, which act upon the latter. From this it follows that the physiology and pathology of the blood represent a mass of knowledge, at once immense and varioits. It is not our purpose here, however, to treat these subjects exhaustively, but merely to select fx’om them certain well-established facts which bear upon disease, and to point out the way in which they may help in its diagnosis. I. COLOUR.—Arterial and venous blood differ considerablj’' as to colour in health, the former being scarlet, and the latter a bluish red. The distinction, however, belongs not to the fluid part of the blood, or plasma, but to the colouring-matter, or hjcmoglobin, contained in the red corpuscles, and it depends upon the chemical constitution of the corpuscles, which, changing colour themselves, determine the tint of the whole mass of the blood. Thus, when the blood is rich in ox}'gen, the amount of luemoglobin is increased, and the fluid is proportionately bright red. Again, where, as is always the case with venous blood, oxygen is deficient, or whei-e, from physiological or pathological causes, arterial blood contains but little oxyhemoglobin, the colour is darker, and this in a degree corre- sponding to the condition which underlies it. In certain morbid states, however, the blood may assume a brighter tint than that of healthy arterial blood. In carbonic oxide poisoning, for instance, it is of a bright cheiTy colour (see p. 41). [Venous blood, which appears dark red by reflected light, is green by transmitted light. It is therefore said to be dichroic. Arterial blood is monochroic.^]* * The Niiiiibers refer to the Jjibliograi>liy at the end of the volume. A *