Researches on the nature of the normal destruction of sugar in the animal system / by Frederick William Pavy.

  • Pavy, F. W. (Frederick William), 1829-1911.
Date:
[1855]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on the nature of the normal destruction of sugar in the animal system / by Frederick William Pavy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    protluced some amount of disturbancej but the animal perfectly recovered in the course of a few days. These two experiments, therefore, fully accord with the results that might have been anticipated upon the views that have been entertained. The blood is normally alkaline, and thus already in a condition favorable for the metamorphosis of sugar. The introduction of an alkali did not alter the rapidity of the process of saccharine destruction. Immediately, how- ever, that the normal alkalinity was overcome by the injection of phosphoric acid, the metamorphosis ceased to be accomplished to its previous extent. If we now direct our attention to the examination of the changes that occur in blood normally impregnated with sac- charine matter, during spontaneous coagulation and whilst decomposition is taking place, we shall meet with some ex- ceedingly interesting facts, which, I am not at all aware, have been by any one hitherto adverted to, and some of which con- siderably perplexed me in my analyses, until I became acquainted with them as the results of repeated observation. I have already shown, that whilst right-ventricular blood is susceptible of undergoing the molecular changes of life, exposure to the influence of oxygen efl'ects a more or less complete metamor- phosis or destruction of its contained sugar; and we have now to notice the results that the molecular changes of decompo- sition, and even of spontaneous coagulation, are capable of producing. On collecting blood from the right ventricle of a healthy animal, placing it aside, so as to allow it to separate into clot and serum, and examining these on the following day; we find, that whilst the serum gives indications of being largely impregnated with saccharine matter, the clot communicates a scarcely traceable reaction. The details of the following ob- servation, which I have repeatedly confirmed, will serve to show more explicitly what has just been stated. About two ounces of blood having been collected from the right ventricle of a dog that had just been sacrificed for another purpose, it was placed aside until the following day, and allowed to undergo spontaneous coagulation. Two drachms of the serum were then taken, and found to yield an abundant indi- cation of the presence of sugar. The whole of the clot that