Leucocythemia, or white cell blood : in relation to the physiology and pathology of the lymphatic glandular system. / By John Hughes Bennett.

  • Bennett, John Hughes, 1812-1875.
Date:
MDCCCLII. [1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leucocythemia, or white cell blood : in relation to the physiology and pathology of the lymphatic glandular system. / By John Hughes Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    of good and laudable pus, which necessarily leads it to poison the blood ; for it is a matter of common observation, that large abscesses are absorbed and eliminated without occasioning so-called purulent infection. In all such cases, the pus corpuscles must, in the first instance, be disintegrated and reduced to a fluid condition ; still the matter or substance of which they were composed passes into the blood. Hence, while leucocythemia proves that corpuscles, identical in form, size, structure, and chemical composition -with those of pus, may float in the blood and circulate innocuously, the well-known fact of the absorption of abscesses demonstrates, that pus, when healthy, is not associated with any poisonous properties. If, then, the fever and other marked symptoms are owing to pus, it must be pus possessing properties wholly different from that which is gener- ally called good or laudable. The second explanation was advanced by Cruveilhier, who, on in- jecting mercury, ink, and other substances into the blood of a living animal, found that the multiple abscesses were formed wherever these accumulated. Hence impaction of some substances, and con- sequent local inflammations, may lead to abscesses ; but that such is not the necessary result of admixture of pus with the blood, is proved not only by the previous observations, but by numerous experiments of Lebert1 and Sedillot,2 in which the animals recovered. The third doctrine was advanced by Mr Henry Lee,3 and resulted from observing that when pus was mingled with recently-drawn blood, it coagulated more rapidly and more firmly than under ordi- nary circumstances. This observation he connected with the well- known fact, that phlebitis was often associated with coagula causing obstruction of the veins. Now it is worthy of remark, that in de- cided cases of leucocythemia the blood is more highly coagulable when drawn from the arm, and after death it often presents firm coagula filling the vessels, as in Case I. Plate I. illustrates these 1 Physiologic Patliologique, tom. i., p. 313. 2 De L’Infection Puralente, p. 73, et seq. 3 On the Origin of Inflammation of the Veins. London, 1830. P