Page:The third Huxley lecture.pdf/16

12 that it would be interesting, instead of the powerful irritants which had been usually applied in such investigations, to try warm water, the mildest of all stimulants to the human body. Having fixed a young frog upon a plate of glass on the stage of a microscope tilted at an angle of about 45°, one of the webs being extended in the field of view, I watched the effect of throwing a few drops of warm water upon the web by means of a syringe. The application of the water was little more than momentary; and as it flowed off immediately from the sloping surface, I could at once observe the result. This filled me with astonishment, and at first I could not understand what 1 saw. All appearance of blood-vessels—arteries, capillaries, and veins—had disappeared; the field being absolutely exsanguine. In a short time the circulation was resumed with greater freedom than ever; and on repeating the experiment I found that the first effect of the stimulus was a state of extreme constriction of the arterioles, which kept back the blood-corpuscles but allowed the liquor sanguinis to pass; so that the capillaries and veins, though retaining their former dimensions, were occupied only by the filtered plasma, itself invisible, while their walls were with difficulty discernible under the low magnifying power that I was using.

Thus was swept away at one stroke the latest theory upon the subject. The condition of contraction of the arterioles, which Wharton Jones had supposed to be the cause of the accumulation of the red cor-