When the requisite supply of oxygen
is reduced, the extrication of heat within the system is promptly
diminished, but the vitalization of digested food is unfavorably
affected much more slowly, but with equal certainty. If the quota of
oxygen existing in the arterial blood of the vessels whose duty it is
to supply the vital fluid to the absorbent system, be inadequate to
enable these operations to go on properly, the life-giving processes
must necessarily be imperfectly accomplished. Under these
circumstances the digested material is imperfectly vitalized, and is
therefore inadequately fitted to be used in building up and repairing
the living body. But its course in the system cannot be delayed, much
less stopped.
The blood possesses a definite constitution, which cannot be
materially altered without the rapid development of grave, perhaps
fatal consequences. The nutritive matters received into the blood must
be given up by it to the tissues for their repair, whether such
materials are well or ill fitted for the vital purposes. Dr. B.W.
Carpenter, of London, the celebrated physiologist, makes the following
pertinent statements on this subject, which I condense from his great
work on physiology: "We frequently find an imperfectly organizable
product, known by the designation of tubercular matter, taking the
place of the normal elements of tissue, both in the ordinary process
of nutrition, and still more when inflammation is set up.
From the examination of the blood of tuberculous subjects it appears
that, although the bulk of the coagulum obtained by stirring or
beating is usually greater than that of healthy blood, yet this
coagulum is not composed or well elaborated fibriae, for it is soft
and loose, and contains an unusually large number of colorless blood
corpuscles, while the red corpuscles form an abnormally small
proportion of it.
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