Experimental and practical researches on inflammation, and on the origin and nature of tubercles of the lungs / [William Addison].

  • Addison, William, 1802-1881
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental and practical researches on inflammation, and on the origin and nature of tubercles of the lungs / [William Addison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    If a thin pellicle of coagulated fibrine be removed from the surface of buffy blood with the point of a needle, and a tea-spoonful of the fluid beneath it, free from red corpuscles, carefully skimmed off and put into a phial, previously nearly filled with an ounce and a-half of spring water, the mixture will become of a pale whitish colour, nearly opaque. If at the end of a quarter of an hour the mixture be examined by the microscope, numerous colourless corpuscles will be found in it, containing molecules and gra¬ nules in their interior. There will also be found mul¬ titudes of isolated molecules and granules mingled with irregular masses composed of films and shreds, the remnants of ruptured corpuscular tunics. At the end of two hours a white sediment will be found at the bottom of the phial; this sediment is composed of similar objects mingled with fibres of fibrine. Here, then, a pus-like matter, composed of granulated corpuscles, isolated molecules and granules, and ruptured corpuscular tunics, may be obtained by the action of water on the elements of the buffy coat of the blood. The white colour is evidently owing to the great number of free mole¬ cules and granules. If dilute acetic acid be added to recent blood corpuscles, its action upon them is similar to that of water, but more energetic. The red corpuscles are usually rendered darker and then dissolved (plate i, fig. 12, p) ; frequently, however, several corpuscles appear enlarged, but very pale ; they retain their usual figure, and the inner vesicle or the central portion is exceedingly obvious. (Fig. 12, q.) The colourless corpuscles lose somewhat of the regularity of their outline, and large gra-