Report on the state of the blood and the blood-vessels in inflammation, and on other points relating to the circulation in the extreme vessels : together with a report on lymphatic hearts and on the propulsion of lymph from them, through a proper duct into their respective veins / by T. Wharton Jones.

  • Jones, Thomas Wharton, 1808-1891.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the state of the blood and the blood-vessels in inflammation, and on other points relating to the circulation in the extreme vessels : together with a report on lymphatic hearts and on the propulsion of lymph from them, through a proper duct into their respective veins / by T. Wharton Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    constricted by the contraction of its muscular wall, by what cause soever excited, so that the current of blood is retarded, we observe that red corpuscles accumulate by retention and, aggregating, come at last to block up the capillaries and venous radicles to which the constricted arterioles lead. The accumulation thus arising is augmented by the addition of corpuscles derived by reflux from neighbouring vessels in which the circulation is still free owing to their origin being higher up, as explained in detail, §§ 52-56. § 83. Lister, it is above mentioned, excogitates that it was perfectly clear that stagnation of the blood depended on something more than mere contraction of the arteries. What that something more is, he, however, leaves a mystery under the name of suspension of animation. He does not even explain what he means by the vague expression of contraction of the arteries which he attributes to me, though I never used it. Nay, more, as if to fix a charge of error on me, he adduces an observation of his own to show that accumulation and stasis of corpuscles took place in two or three capillaries unaccompanied by any change in the vascular dimensions—meaning by this that there was no contraction of the arteries. Perfectly true, but the stasis in this case was owing to a change in the condition of the cor- puscles themselves by the action of the morsel of capsicum which Lister himself applied to the web in his experiment; though, in consequence of his inadequate observation, he overlooked the sequence and correlations of the phenomenon. § 84. It has been above shown (§ 76), and let it be here repeated, that under the action of a solution of salt dropped on the web of a frog, the full stream of blood in the larger arteries at first escapes, in a great measure, being affected, but that in consequence of the tenuity of the stream in the capillaries, the red corpuscles of the blood flowing therein readily become acted on by the salt which is imbibed into it, so that here and there we may see them aggregated and stagnant. This effect of the imbibition of salt in solution through the capillary wall on the red corpuscles is described and delineated in my Essay in ' Guy's Hospital Reports,' so