Suggestions as to lines for future research : being the substance of the oration delivered at the Hunterian Society of London, February 9th, 1881 / by A.H. Smee.

  • Smee, A. Hutchison (Alfred Hutchison), 1841-1901.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions as to lines for future research : being the substance of the oration delivered at the Hunterian Society of London, February 9th, 1881 / by A.H. Smee. 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.

    16/78 (page 14)
    I have observed a very curious property in fibrine jelly (which has been made from a dilute solution) of breaking up and becoming again fluid, and passing through the blotting paper filter used to separate the liquor sanguinis from the fibrine jelly. I can find no satisfactory explanation of this remarkable change, but it would seem to show that very minute causes are sufficient to determine the physical condition of colloid substances. The analogy between fibrine and silica in their physical behaviour will be best observed by com- paring their properties together. ist. Fibrine and silica colloidal substances are known to exist in the fluid as well as the coagulated condition. 2nd. When either fibrine or silicic acid assumes the pectous state it is incapable of being per se redissolved, so as again to be able to spontaneously pectize. The existence of both these substances is a continual metastasis: fibrine is a typical instance of this metastasis. 3rd. All colloids in the fluid condition, whether of organic or inorganic origin, after an interval of time, longer or shorter according to their specific characters, spontaneously coagulate. 4th. This coagulation takes place without the intervention of any chemical agent which is capable of producing a change in that colloid. 5th. The addition of neutral salts to in- organic colloids in a fluid state (just as the falling of a speck of dust into the supersaturated solution of sulphate of soda favours crystallization) favours the