On the early stages of inflammation / By Joseph Lister.

  • Joseph Lister
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the early stages of inflammation / By Joseph Lister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/60 (page 648)
    eac “rouleau” adhering to other rouleaux, a network is produced with intervals of colourless liquor sanguinis. Kapid movement of the blood prevents this occurrence, but it commences as soon as the corpuscles approach to a state of quiescence, and I have seen short rouleaux already present in a drop drawn from my own finger within ten seconds of its emission. In this respect the aggregation of the red corpuscles differs fiom the coagulation of the fibrine, which does not begin till some minutes after with- drawal from the vessels. There is, in fact, no connexion whatever between the two processes, as is clear from the circumstance that if a drop of blood is stirred with a needle while coagulation is taking place, so as to remove the whole of the fibrine, the corpuscles, which have been separated from one another by the agitation to which they have been subjected, aggregate again in the serum in the same manner as they did at first m the liquor sanguinis. The beautifully regular form of the long masses of corpuscles has suggested to some persons the idea of the operation of some peculiar vital attraction m their formation, while by others the aggregation has been supposed due to merely physical causes, but has never, I think, received a complete explanation, or my own part, I am satisfied that the rouleaux are simply the result of the biconcave orm of the red discs, together with a certain, though not very great degree of adhesive¬ ness, which retains them pretty firmly attached together when in the position most favourable for its operation, namely, when the margins of their concave surfaces are applied accurately together, but allows them to slip upon one another when in any other position. There is never to be seen anything indicating the existence of an attractive force drawing the corpuscles towards each other: they merely stick together when brought into contact by accidental causes. Their adhesiveness does not affect themselves alone, but other substances also, as may be seen when blood is in motion m an extremely thin film between two plates of glass, when they may be observed sticking for a longer or shorter time to one of the surfaces of the glass, each one dragging behind it a short tail-like process; and as the movement of the blood dimi¬ nishes so as to permit the formation of rouleaux, the latter may be not unfrequently seen adhering in the same way by one of their terminal coipuscles, as represented in the accompanying diagram. _, That the cylindrical character of the aggregated masses is an accidental result of the shape of the blood-discs, is evident from the fact, that in the fiog, although the same tendency to agglutination of the corpuscles exists as in Mammalia, yet, as their bi¬ convex form renders it mechanically impossible for them to be applied to one another throughout their entire cir¬ cumference, they become arranged in groups of an irre- gulai form, as is shown in the annexed sketch of blood contained in a small vein of the frog s web. Again, different specimens of mammalian blood differ very much in the amount of adhesiveness of their corpuscles; and when this property exists beyond a certain degree.