The blood volume of mammals as determined by experiments upon rabbits, guinea-pigs, and mice : and its relationship to the body weight and to the surface area expressed in a formula / by Georges Dreyer and William Ray.

  • Georges Dreyer
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The blood volume of mammals as determined by experiments upon rabbits, guinea-pigs, and mice : and its relationship to the body weight and to the surface area expressed in a formula / by Georges Dreyer and William Ray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    regularly decreasing as the body weight increases, which is quite in conformity with what has been seen from our own experiments. On the other hand, the average blood constant, 2‘58, is very much bigger than our own averaged, 1 ‘58, which is to say that the absolute blood volume found for rabbits by Ranke is about 40 per cent, less than what it actually should be. What this difference is due to in these otherwise accurate experiments is difficult to say, but it is not unlikely that a great amount of haemoglobin has been removed by filtering the turbid fluids in attempting to make them clear. Control experiments of our own have shown us that a turbid fluid cleared by centrifugalisation could lose even up to 40-50 per cent, of its original haemoglobin, this being absorbed by the suspended matter. In Table VIII we have divided Ranke’s experiments into four groups by averaging the weights and blood volumes of animals of somewhat the same weight, covering a range from about 350 to 1700 grammes. Table VIII. Group, Rabbits from Table YII included in group. Average body weight. (“ Rohgewicht.”) Average blood volume observed. Blood constant,* k(= Wt/B). Blood volume* expressed as percentage of body weight. grammes. e.c. A 1—2 353-3 18-0 2-78 5-09 B 3—6 679-0 31-9 2-42 4-70 O 7—9 949-0 39-1 2-47 4-12 D 10—15 1663-0 56-0 2-51 3-37 Average . . . 2-55 4-32 * The figures in these columns are calculated from the average body weight and the average blood volume of the group. The average blood constant of the groups is here 2'55, and the average blood percentage is 4'32. Just as in our own experiments, there is no periodical deviation in the size of the blood constants of the individual groups from the average blood constant of the groups, but there is a regular fall in the blood as percentage of body weight from about 5‘1 to 3'4 as the animals increase in size, thus proving that Ranke was absolutely justified in his conclusion that animals of smaller weight contained relatively more blood than heavier animals of the same species. In Table IX is calculated the blood volume from the average blood constant k for the groups (2‘55), and from the average blood percentage of the groups (4‘32 per cent.). The percentage deviations from the observed figures are given in each case, as with our own experiments. VOL. CCI. B. u
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