Blood relationship

“ In such a case bleeding should not be again resorted to, but the deranged residue should be subdued by means of pacifying or absorbing remedies.
Blood is the origin of the body. It is blood that maintains vitality. Blood is life. ”

“ In these ceremonies, it is evident that the Zuñis, like the Orientals, [307] recognize the blood as the life, the heart as the epitome of life, the liver as a congealed mass of blood, and the transference of blood as the transference of life. Moreover, there is here a trace of that idea of the revivifying, by blood-bathing, of a being that had turned into stone ”

“ That the blood of the living has a peculiar vivifying force, in its transference from one organism to another, is one of the clearly proven re-disclosures of modern medical science; and this transference of blood has been made to advantage by way of the veins, of the stomach, of the intestines, of the tissue, and even of the lungs—through dry-spraying. ”

“ No less certain is the fact that human blood differs from the blood of animals, that in faint variations the blood of no two people is alike, that the blood of any living thing, man or beast, is affected by various things—an infinite number almost—most of which are positively known to modern medical investigators. ”

“ However, when we come to the blood of persons suffering from disease, there are changes in the diameter and even the form of the corpuscles which much complicate the matter; while, in blood-stains of any age, the blood-corpuscles, even with the most artfully-contrived solvent, are so distorted in shape that he would be a bold man who should venture on any definite conclusion as to whether the blood was certainly human, more especially if he had to give evidence in a criminal case. ”

“ The rite is, in some cases, observed after the manner of the Syrians, by the contracting parties tasting each other’s blood; while, in other cases, it is performed by the inter-transfusion of blood between the two. ”

“ The elements of the blood are derived from the chyle, and, if it be vitiated, the blood also must suffer: if the blood be diseased, so must necessarily be all the organs which it supplies; and if the body be thus debilitated, can any wonder be felt that it should no longer be able to resist the action of offending causes which full health alone can withstand? ”

“ The mode of inter-transference of blood, with all that this carries, has been deemed practicable, alike by way of the lips, and by way of the opened and inter-flowing veins. It has been also represented, by blood-bathing, by blood-anointing, and by blood-sprinkling; or, again, by the inter-drinking of wine—which was formerly commingled with blood itself in the drinking. ”

“ Indeed, there is nothing to be met with in the animal body prior to the blood, or more excellent; nor are the spirits which they distinguish from the blood to be found anywhere separate from it; for the very blood itself, if without spirits or heat, does not deserve the name of blood, but of cruor.... ”

“ It is the more necessary to caution people against bleeding in this disease, as there is generally at the beginning an universal stricture upon the vessels, and sometimes an oppression and difficulty of breathing, which suggest the idea of a plethora, or too great a quantity of blood. ”

“ Some, whilst they attempt to lessen the difficulty here, affirming that the blood is spirituous and arterious, virtually concede that the office of the arteries is to carry blood from the heart into the whole of the body, and that they are therefore filled with blood; for spirituous blood is not the less blood on that account. ”

“ But it is necessary that the heart shall be assisted considerably, in the circulation 357 of the blood, by a contractile power of the vessels themselves; and the same quantity of blood is not to circulate in the same body at all times, for animals are liable to frequent injuries, by which the quantities of blood in their bodies may be very suddenly reduced. ”

“ Indeed, the blood nourishes, fosters, and keeps alive all the parts which it constructs and adjoins to itself, even as the heavenly bodies above, especially the sun and moon, impart life to what is below, while they continue in perpetual circulation. Since, therefore, the blood acts beyond the powers of the elements and is potent with those virtues aforesaid, and also is the instrument of the supreme workman, no one ever will give praise enough to its wonderful and divine faculties. ”

“ The interesting part of the experiment to us is, that if serum only, without globules, be restored to the unfortunate animal, it is of no use whatever, and the corpse does not revive.
It is evident, then, that all the power and virtue of the blood lies in the globules; and according as their number is great or small it is "rich" or "poor," as it is called; and where their number is not up to the mark, the blood acts more feebly on the organs, life is calmer, and people are no longer troubled with emotions—in other words, with violent heats of the blood. ”

“ The most direct way in which diseased blood produces disease in the parts to which it is conveyed, is by communicating to them its own condition. Even foreign substances, which have no natural connexion with the body, may, in this way, be conveyed in the blood, and deposited in the organs of the body. ”

“ We may just mention that as a general rule he approves of bleeding after any accident. He disapproves of bleeding both at the onset and the crisis of a disease. In constitutions requiring bloodletting he holds that spring is the best season for it. Even in cases in which there is a deficiency of blood, but there is congestion in some particular part, he permits blood to be abstracted, in order to produce revulsion, the patient’s strength being recruited afterwards by a nourishing diet. ”

“ If there is a failure of renewal—that is, a disease—we shall generally find an abnormal condition of the blood. The distribution of the blood is controlled by the heart, a great four-chambered pump. One chamber drives the blood to the lungs, a mass of fine porous membranes, where it comes into contact with the air, and gives off the poisons which it has accumulated in its course through the body, and takes up a fresh supply of oxygen. By another chamber of the heart the blood is then sucked out of the lungs, and by the next chamber it is driven to every corner of the body. ”

“ But when the blood is driven with violence from the veins into the arteries, forthwith there is disease; and the blood is poured the wrong way into the arteries, and there withstands and dashes itself against the breath of life coming from the heart, and turns the course of it—and this forsooth is fever. ”

“ There is no part of the body, within or without, that has not a vast many small blood-vessels, running in every direction, that carry the blood to nourish all parts. But there are more blood-vessels in the skin than anywhere else, so that the quantity of blood in our skin is greater than all that is to be found, in all the rest of the body put together. ”

“ For one thing—among many—there is the matter of blood supply. Incorrect blood matching causes death in a transfusion. This is not because of the mismatch in the blood stream per se, it is because the metabolism of the entire human body is not matched to the different type of blood. ”

“ Therefore, if I shall add the causes and uses of the circulation and reveal other secrets of the blood, showing how much it conduces to mortal happiness and to the welfare of soul as well as body, that the blood be kept pure and sweet by a right regimen, I truly believe that I shall do a work as useful and grateful to philosophers and physicians as it will be new; and that the following view will seem to nobody so improbable and absurd as it formerly seemed to Aristotle, viz.: that the blood, a domestic deity as it were, is the very soul within the body, as Critias and others thought of old ”

“ The demonstration by physiology of the individual life of the parts, and the practical applications of transfusion, are wholly modern, as the circulation of the blood itself is. In ancient days the general belief was, that the life dwells in the blood, and yet some ancients seem to have had a suspicion that the elements of the organization live of themselves, and that, perhaps, the blood has a movement of circulation. ”

“ I have never seen one death from such loss of blood in the twenty years that have passed since I first commenced to study medicine. Why has the dread of bleeding ceased to chill the heart of the surgeon when entering on an operation? Vivisection has not done all, but it has done much to help us to attain to this degree of excellence in our present methods.
The use of the ligature can be traced so far back in the history of medicine that it is impossible to say whether it was first used upon man or animals. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, the blood is preeminently the life; and even when poured out on the earth, the blood does not lose its vitality. It still has its intelligent relations to its Author and Guardian; [429] as the world has been accustomed to count a possibility, down to modern times. ”

“ It is allowed, and has been promulgated by all authors, that the blood is one of the most active agents in the animal economy—in repairing waste, in affording peculiar fluids necessary in that economy, in supplying organs with materials for carrying on their functions, &c.; and yet all this, according to some, is accomplished by a dead animal fluid; no one can plausibly object to the laws by which the blood is governed being referred to the power of life, and to their being called Vital Principles. ”

“ Receiving new blood as a means of receiving new life, seems to have been sought interchangeably, in olden time, in various diseases, by blood lavations, by blood drinking, and by blood transfusion. It is recorded that, in 1483, King Louis XI., of France, struggled for life by drinking the blood of young children, as a means of his revivifying. ”

“ It is an actual fact that blood from which all the oxygen has been withdrawn is so much darker than ordinary venous blood that it gives the impression of being black, although it is really a dark purple. ”

“ Of most of the inferior animals, which, as compared with man, are quite helpless, the blood coagulates more rapidly, and in the case of the birds, almost instantly. The relative composition of fluid and coagulated blood may be thus represented:
Fluid Blood. Coagulated Blood. Plasma----------Serum---------Serum \ \ --------Fibrin-------- \ \ Corpuscles------Corpuscles-------Clot.
12. The blood, as a provider and purifier? What uses does the blood subserve? Experiments? Transfusion? ”

“ Does not the restoration of the blood from its disorganized state, by means of bleeding, suggest an idea of a similar change being practicable in the solids, when they are disorganized by disease? And are we not led hereby to an animating view of the extent and power of medicine?
2. Blood of a scarlet colour, without any separation into crassamentum or serum, indicates a second degree of morbid action. It occurs likewise in the malignant state of fever. It is called improperly dense blood. It occurs in old people. ”

“ Blood in a healthy condition is naturally sweet to the taste, and red in colour, blood that deteriorates from natural decay or from disease more or less black. Blood at its best, before it undergoes deterioration from either natural decay or from disease, is neither very thick nor very thin. In the living animal it is always liquid and warm, but, on issuing from the body, it coagulates in all cases except in the case of the deer, the roe, and the like animals; for, as a general rule, blood coagulates unless the fibres be extracted. Bull's blood is the quickest to coagulate. ”

“ Change of Color.—The blood undergoes a variety of changes in its journey through the system. As it visits the different organs it both gives out and takes up materials. In one place it is enriched, in another it is impoverished. By reason of these alterations in its composition, the blood also changes its color. In one part of the body it is bright red, or arterial; in another it is dark blue, or venous. In the former case it is pure and fit for the support of the tissues ”

“ In order, therefore, to relinquish its seat of origin, and enter constricted and colder places, and move in opposition to its bent, [261] the blood has need not only of violence but of an impeller, such as is the heart alone, and after the fashion described already. ”

“ Whether the Blood affords both the Matter for the structure of the Body, and such parts also, as are fit for the nourishment of the same? Whether the Pulse of the Heart ceasing, there remains yet a certain Motion in the blood, arguing, that Pulse and Life do ultimately rest in the Blood? Whether the Umbilical Vessels convey the blood of the Mother to the Child, or whether the Fœtus be for the most part form'd and {78}acted by the circulating blood, before the existence of the Umbilical Vessels, or before the connecting of the Fœtus with the Uterus? ”

“ Once it was recognized that the state of unconsciousness or death was due to the loss of blood it was a not illogical or irrational procedure to imagine that offerings of blood might restore consciousness and life to the dead. [255] If the blood was seriously believed to be the vehicle of feeling and knowledge, the exchange of blood or the offering of blood to the community was a reasonable method for initiating anyone into the wider knowledge of and sympathy with his fellow-men. ”

“ The amount of blood used in transfusion is usually a very few ounces, sometimes only one or two drachms—rarely ten or more ounces; a small quantity is safer. The blood of a different species of animal is considered dangerous when used in large quantity. Venous blood is preferred, and may or may not be defibrinated. ”