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*Purposes of Water in the Blood.*—Not only is water the most abundant constituent of the blood; it is, in some respects, the most important. It is the liquefying portion of the blood, holding in solution the constituents of the plasma and floating the corpuscles. Deprived of its water, the blood becomes a solid substance.
In such case, there is inheritance of a defect, and the result is as if the soma of the parent had acted on the germ-plasm, although in reality soma and plasma have simply both suffered the action of the same cause. Now, suppose that the soma can influence the germ-plasm, as those believe who hold that acquired characters are transmissible.
The serum is almost entirely free from corpuscles, these being entangled in the fibrin. This clotting of the blood is due to the formation in the blood, after it is withdrawn from the living body, of a substance called fibrin. It is made up of a network of fine white threads, running in every direction through the plasma, and is a proteid substance.
That they are in solution in the plasma is well known, that they are in a solid or precipitated form in the tissues is also true, and that the tissues are supplied from the blood is also evident, because the blood is the only part that receives supplies of material direct from the food taken and digested.
The serum, which is similar in appearance to the blood plasma, differs from that liquid in one important respect as explained below. *Causes of Coagulation.*—Although coagulation affects all parts of the blood, only one of its constituents is found in reality to coagulate. This is the fibrinogen.
But inside the room, the battle was less successful. It wasn't the accelerator. It wasn't the tablets of anodyne. They even tried sweeping the floor and using the dust without results. Then another test in the room, made with four volunteers Jake selected, yielded complete cures after injections with plain salt water in place of plasma. The plague speeded up again.
So also the organic compounds lactate of soda, lactate of lime, pneumate of soda, margarate of soda, stearate of soda, butyrate of soda, oleine, margarine, stearine, lecethine, glucose, inosite, plasmine, serine, peptones, etc., are found alike in the tissues and in the blood plasma.
A well-known variety, called albumin, is found in the white of eggs and in the plasma of the blood, while the muscles contain an abundance of another variety, known as myosin. Cheese consists largely of a kind of proteid, called casein, which is also present in milk, but in a more diluted form.
Consciousness, like feeling and willing, among the higher animals is a mechanical work of the ganglion-cells, and as such must be carried back to chemical and physical events in the plasma of these.
The Professor, standing by the instrument, with one hand on the brass screw, had got the diseased drop ready arranged for our inspection beforehand, and was gloating over it himself with scientific enthusiasm. "Grey corpuscles, you will observe," he said, "almost entirely deficient. Red, poor in number, and irregular in outline. Plasma, thin. Nuclei, feeble.
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