THE SECRET OF BLOOD

Evening Star, Issue 19003, 27 July 1925, Page 4

THE SECRET OF BLOOD

A RED CORPUSCLE RESERVOIR The explanation of the long-standing physiological mystery of how it is possible lor the body to lose largo quantities of blood either as a result of wounds or through internal hemorrhage without death was given recently at the Koyal institution b< Professor Joseph Barcrott in the first of his lectures on ‘The Effect of Heat on the Circulation’ (says the London ‘-Morning Post ’). The lecturer said (hat in studying the effects of climate on the health a committee of which he was a member disdint'iii-'n'vi seventy-six different types of climate and eighty-nine different ailments wmen uiigui he affected by change of climate. The fact that on one day one felt fresh and anoiher day tired suggested that there might be factors in connection with climate of which there was nothing as yet known. Observation carried out some years ago in tho course of a voyage had shown that the content of blood in the body had risen progressively with the increase of tempera, tnro, had fallen when the temperature declined, and Had again risen, as the temperaturn increased again. It was easy to understand why a greater quantity of timialling blood should he required with increase of warmth, because the amount: of blond flowing through too skin could be observed to increase; but it was not. easy to understand what was the mechanism by which this quantity of circulating blood was increased. Experiments showed that not merely (lie lirpud in the Mood inoroased, but also the red coloring matter, and it was clear that there must he some place in the body which contained a largo number of red blood corpuscles that normally were quite outside tho general circulation. The spleen had been an obvious organ to investigate as being possibly such a reservoir, but the difficulty was that at first sight it did not appear that the spleen was sufficiently large to provide the necessary supply of blood. No one. knew what was the size, of the spleen in the living animal or man. It had been found that the. spleen of a purring cat occupied four times Hie volume of that cat when dead, while the spleen of a cat when in extremis was even smaller than its capacity when dead. Tho conclusion , that could bo deduced from this was tli'it any change in the conditions of the body that demanded more haimogiobin would bring about an output of blood from the spleen into the general circulation.

“I have little doubt,” Professor Barcroft continued, “that this is the mechanism by which life is saved when there is loss of blood cither from wounds or by haemorrhage into the alimentary canal. It is wonderful how much blood can bo lost by accident without death.”