a red liquor circulating through the vessels of the human body and the bodies of the larger animals, which appears immediately and essentially necessary to the preservation of life.

Though there is no living creature as yet known whose life doth not immediately depend upon the circulation of some kind of fluid through its vessels, yet unless such fluid is of a red colour, it does not obtain the name of blood; and therefore such creatures as have a colourless or milky liquor circulating through their vessels, are called exanguinous animals.

The blood has a very different degree of thickness or viscosity in different animals, and even in the same animal at different times. Though it is in all cases endowed with a considerable degree of tenacity, yet in strong animals that tenacity is remarkably greater than in weak ones; and hence the blood of bulls was made use of by the ancients as a poison, its extreme viscosity rendering it totally indigestible by the powers of the human stomach. It is well known also by physicians, that there are some states of the human body in which the blood becomes vastly tenacious, so as in a great measure to refuse any intimate connection with water; and others, in which its crafts is almost totally dissolved, so as to appear, when drawn out of the body, like a fluid and half putrid mass. See MEDICINE Index. The common appearance of the blood when drawn from a vein of the human body is well known. It first seems a homogeneous red liquor; then it consolidates into one uniform mass; in a little time, a yellowish watery liquor begins to separate from it, which is more drawn from or less in quantity according to the state in which the blood happens to be; the red mass, in the mean time, contracts greatly in its dimensions, and increases in solidity. But this increase of solidity is likewise proportional to the state of the blood at the time: in strong people, if attacked with a violent inflammatory disease, the solid part is exceedingly tough, insomuch that Dr Huxham says he has sometimes found it almost like a piece of flesh itself; whereas, in other diseases, the solid part is very soft and tender, breaking in pieces with the slightest touch. The spontaneous separation of the blood into cralfamentum, serum, and coagulable lymph, hath been already taken notice of under ANATOMY. See ANATOMY Index.

The attention of physiologists hath been very much engaged by enquiries into the nature and composition of the blood, and accordingly it hath been examined in all possible ways. By a chemical analysis, it discovers the same principles with other animal substances; giving over in distillation a great quantity of phlegm, a volatile spirit, with much fetid oil; after which, there remains a charred matter, that, burnt in an open fire, leaves a white earth similar to calcined hartshorn. Some eminent chemists, Mr Homberg particularly, have asserted that blood contains an acid as well as an alkali, but that the former doth not arise till towards the end of the distillation: but what is very singular, and indeed must throw no small suspicion on the whole account is, that the acid and alkali, notwithstanding their great tendency on all other occasions to unite with each other, do here remain separate, so that the liquor may be even redistilled without their forming any neutral compound.

An experiment in confirmation of this is recorded in the memoirs of the Royal Academy for 1712. Six pounds of human blood distilled to dryness with a gentle heat, were reduced to a pound and a half; after which, the mass was urged with a graduated fire, till the retort at last became red hot. The produce was 17 ounces of liquor; 12 of which were a red and very empyreumatic volatile spirit, the other five were oil. The caput mortuum was a light coal weighing four ounces and a half. On rectifying the volatile spirit in a small retort, about an ounce of red fetid liquor remained, which had a very acid smell, and turned the juice of tournel red. Mr Homberg now imagined, that the acid contained in the blood of animals could not difgengage itself perfectly by these distillations without addition. He therefore determined to distil human blood with an admixture of some other substance; but as earths contain a salt, which might render the operation uncertain, he determined to use only the caput mortuum of a former distillation of the same substance. For this purpose, four pounds of a coagulum of human blood being well mixed with a large quantity of this residuum, and the whole dried in the sun, it was put into a retort, and distilled with a fire, raised, towards the end of the operation, to the utmost violence. The oil being separated from the volatile spirit, the latter was rectified; and the consequence was, that there came over four pounds of a red acid liquor, that turned the tincture of tournel very red. All the distillations of the aqueous liquors already mentioned, obtained by similar processes, being mixed together, and separated from their yet remaining oil, by careful dilution with water and filtration, they were at length distilled together; the liquor that came over was clear as water, and its first quantities contained a great deal of volatile salt, but the last two ounces were found to be as four as distilled vinegar.—The same products were obtained from the blood of carnivorous animals, as well as from that of animals feeding solely upon vegetables.

In Dr Lewis's notes on Newman's Chemistry we Dr Lewis's have the following account of the blood, and the parts account of into which it may be resolved. "Recent blood is e. the blood. qually fluid, and in taste somewhat saline. Viewed by a microscope, it appears composed of numerous red globules swimming in a transparent fluid. On standing for a little time, it separates into a thick cralfamentum and fluid serum. By agitation, it continues fluid: A consistent polypous matter adheres to the flirrer, which by repeated ablation with water becomes white.—Received from the vein in warm water, it deposits a quantity of transparent filamentous matter, the red portion continuing dissolved in the water. On evaporating the fluid, a red powdery substance is left.—It congeals by frost, and becomes fluid again by warmth; after liquefaction, it quickly putrefies.—Fluid and florid blood, exposed to a temperate air, putrefies sooner than such as is more dense. Insipidated to dryness, it leaves a dark-coloured mass, amounting, at a medium, to about one-fourth of the weight of the blood, of a bitter saline taste, easily inflammable, burning with a bluish flame. The exsiccated blood is not soluble in acid or alkaline liquors; but gives some tincture to water and to spirit of wine, and is more powerfully acted upon by dulcified spirit of nitre. Recent blood is coagulated by the mineral acids, and by most of the combinations of them with earthy and metallic bodies. With vegetable acids, and with solutions of neutral salts, it mixes equably without coagulation. Alkalies, both fixed and volatile, render it more fluid, and preserve it from coagulating.

"The serum of blood is more saline than the cralfamentum, and does not so speedily putrefy. It freezes somewhat more difficultly than pure water; and its aqueous part evaporates, by a gentle warmth, somewhat more readily, leaving about one-twelfth of the weight of the serum of a solid yellowish pellucid matter. Exposed to heat a little greater than that of the human body, it coagulates into a solid mass, without any considerable evaporation. Both this coagulum and the insipidated serum are readily inflammable in the fire, not dissoluble in water, or in spirits of wine, in acid or in alkaline liquors."

But the texture of the blood discoverable by a mi-Texture of croscope, hath engaged the attention of the learned the blood much more than the chemical analysis ever did. Leeuwenhoek was the first who discovered, or fancied he did, to Leeuwenhoek, covered, that the blood, as it exists in the body of an animal, consists of a quantity of red globular particles swimming in a large quantity of transparent liquor. Each of these globules, he imagined, was composed of six smaller ones packed together. While the six continued to adhere, their colour was red; but when fe- parated, they became yellow, and thus formed what is called the ferum. He even pretended to have discovered that each of the serous globules consisted of fix smaller ones, and that these when broken down constituted some more subtle and penetrating liquor than the serum, &c. This was for a long time received almost universally as an undoubted fact; and many theories were built upon it, and elaborate calculations made, of which (we hope) no account needs now be given, as the falsity of these pretended discoveries is generally allowed. Father de Torre, with microscopes which he pretended were capable of magnifying to an incredible degree, found that the red particles of the blood were of an annular figure, with a perforation in the middle; and that the ring itself was formed of several joints. Some of these extraordinary magnifiers, however, being sent over to England, those who were appointed by the Royal Society to make trial of them found them totally useless, so that the credit of Father de Torre's discoveries must have rested principally on his own evidence. The falsity of his hypothesis, as well as that of Leeuwenhoek, was detected by the late Mr Hewson, whose microscopical experiments on the blood being the latest that have appeared, we shall transcribe the following particular account of them, given by himself in a letter to Dr Haygarth physician in Chester.—"The red particles of the blood, improperly called globules, are flat in all animals, and of very different sizes in different animals. In man they are small, as flat as a shilling, and appear to have a dark spot in the middle. In order to see them distinctly, I dilute the blood with fresh serum. My predecessors, not having thought of this, could not see them distinctly. And Leeuwenhoek in particular, imagining a round figure fittest for motion, concluded they must be round in the human body; though he and others allowed that in frogs, &c. where they viewed them distinctly from the blood being thinner, they were flat. Now I prove that they are flat in all animals. In the human blood, where these particles are small, it is difficult to determine what that black spot is which appears in the centre of each. Some have concluded that it was a perforation: but in a frog, where it is fix times as large as in a man, it is easy to show that it is not a perforation, but on the contrary is a little solid, which is contained in the middle of a vehicle. Instead, therefore, of calling this part of the blood red globules, I should call it red vehicles; for each particle is a flat vehicle, with a little solid sphere in its centre.

"I find that the blood of all animals contains vehicles of this sort. In human blood there are millions of them; and they give it the red colour. But in insects they are white, and less numerous in proportion than in man and quadrupeds. As they are flat in all animals, I suspect that shape is a circumstance of importance, but can be altered by a mixture with different fluids. And I find that it is by a determinate quantity of neutral salt contained in the serum that this fluid is adapted to preserving these vehicles in their flat shape: for, if they be mixed with water, they become round, and dissolve perfectly; but add a little of any neutral salt to the water, and they remain in it, without any alteration in their shape, and without dissolving.

"Now, when it is considered, that the blood of all animals is filled with these particles, we must believe that they serve some very important purpose in the animal economy; and since they are so complicated in their structure, it is improbable they should be made by mechanical agitation in the lungs or blood-vessels, as has been suspected, but probably have some organs set apart for their formation. This I shall endeavour to prove, when I have explained their structure a little more particularly, and mentioned the manner in which I exhibit it. I take the blood of a toad or frog, in which they are very large; I mix it with the serum of human blood to dilute it; I find them appear all flat; so they do in the blood-vehicles of this animal, as I have distinctly seen in the web between its toes, whilst the animal was alive and fixed in the microscope. Their appearance in these animals is not unlike slices of cucumber. I next mix a little of the blood with water, which immediately makes them all round, and then begins to dissolve them whilst they are round. I incline the stage of the microscope, so as to make them roll down it; and then I can distinctly see the solid in the middle fall from side to side like a pea in a bladder. A neutral salt added to them at this time brings them back to their flat shape: but if the salt be not added, the water gradually dissolves away the vehicle; and then the little sphere is left naked. Such is the composition of these particles. I have exhibited these experiments to a considerable number of my acquaintance, who all agree in their being satisfactory.

"The microscope I use is a single lens, and therefore as little likely to deceive us as a pair of spectacles, which, as is allowed by all who use them, do not figure objects, but only represent them larger.

"From farther experiments, I am convinced, that the use of the thymus and lymphatic glands is to make the middle solid pieces: and I can prove it in as satisfactory a manner as you can do the use of any vifcus in the human body; that is, by opening these glands, and examining the fluid contained in their cells, which I find to be full of these little solids. I moreover find, that the lymphatic vessels take them up from those glands, and convey them into the blood-vehicles which carry them to the spleen, in whose cells they have the vehicles laid over them; so that the thymus and lymphatic glands make the central particles, and the spleen makes the vehicles that surround them. That this is the use of the spleen appears from examining the lymph which is returned from its lymphatic vessels; for that lymph, contrary to what is observed in other parts of the body, is extremely red.

"But besides having these glands set apart for making the red vehicles of the blood, I find that they are also made in the lymphatic vessels in different parts of the body, whose coats have blood-vehicles properly constructed for this secretion. So that the thymus and lymphatic glands are no more than appendages of the lymphatic system, for making the middle particles; and the spleen an appendage to the lymphatic vessels, for making the vehicles which contain these middle particles.

"I conjecture that it is the coagulable lymph which is converted into this red part of the blood, from a curious fact that has long been known: namely, that the blood in the splenic vein does not coagulate when ex- posed to the air, as the blood of other veins does; so that it seems to be robbed of its coagulable lymph in passing through the spleen.

"It is very remarkable, that the spleen can be cut out of an animal, and the animal do well without it. I made the experiment on a dog, and kept him a year and a half without observing his health to be in the least impaired. From this some have concluded the spleen to be an useless weight; which is absurd, when we consider that all animals with red blood have it. Therefore it is more consistent with what we know of the animal economy, to conclude, that since an animal can do well without it, there is probably some part of the body that can supply its place.

"Insects have vehicles constructed in a similar way to ours; but differing in colour. But insects have neither spleen, thymus, nor lymphatic glands; and therefore in them probably these vehicles are entirely fabricated in the lymphatic vessels. But to us, and other of the more perfect animals, besides the lymphatic vessels, nature has given those glands, that a proper quantity of those important vehicles might be the better secured to us; just as she has given us two ears, the better to secure us hearing through life, though we can hear perfectly well with one."

This letter, we apprehend, contains the strength of Mr Hewson's evidence for his hypothesis; on which we shall only remark, that if the red globules are prepared in the manner above mentioned, and the lymphatic vessels are excretories of those glands where the red particles are formed; then if there is any vessel where all these excretories unite, in that vessel the lymph ought to appear very red, on account of the accumulated quantity of red globules brought thither from all parts of the body. But no such redness seems ever to have been taken notice of by any anatomist: this therefore must be an objection to Mr Hewson's hypothesis; and such a one, perhaps, as will not be easily removed.

Many other hypotheses have been invented concerning the formation of the red blood, and various opinions delivered concerning its red colour. In a lecture delivered at Newcastle in 1793, by Dr Wilfon of that place, he affirms "that it is self-evidently the office of the veins to elaborate the fluids into that form and composition which we know by the name of red blood." The self-evidence, here, however, is by no means apparent to us; nor doth he at all point it out in an intelligible manner.—Dr Cullen, in his physiological part of The Institutions of Medicine, acknowledges that we know but little of the formation of any of the animal fluids; and concerning the microscopical observations, &c. on the blood, he gives his opinion in the following words, § celiv. "The red globules have been considered as an oily matter, and from thence their distinct and globular appearance has been accounted for: but there is no direct proof of their oily nature; and their ready union with, and diffusibility in, water, renders it very improbable. As being microscopical objects only, they have been represented by different persons very differently. Some have thought them spherical bodies, but divisible into six parts, each of which in its separate state was also spherical; but other persons have not observed them to be thus divisible. To many observers they have appeared as perfectly spherical; while others judge them to be oblate spheroids, or lenticular. To some they have appeared as annular, and to others as containing a hollow vesicle. All this, with several other circumstances relating to them, very variously represented, show some uncertainty in microscopic observations; and it leaves me, who am not conversant in such observations, altogether uncertain with respect to the precise nature of this part of the blood. The chemical history of it is equally precarious; and, therefore, what has been hitherto said of the production and changes happening to these red globules, we choose to leave untouched.—We suppose that the red globules, when viewed singly, have very little for the colour; and that it is only when a certain number of them are laid upon one another, that the colour appears of a bright red: but this also hath its limits; so that when the number of globules laid on one another is considerable, the colour becomes of a darker red. Upon this supposition, the colour of the mass of blood will be brighter or darker as the colouring part is more or less diffused among the other parts of the mass; and we think this appears to be truly the case from every circumstance that attends the changes which have been at any time observed in the colour of the blood."

Concerning the uncertainty of microscopical as well as chemical experiments, we shall not dispute; though the blood conclusion against them seems carried too far. But with regard to the colour of the blood, we apprehend the action it hath been known, almost, if not altogether, since the discovery of the circulation, that the florid or dark colour depends on the presence or absence of air, and not upon any number of globules. Thus the blood returning from the veins is of a dark colour. Though diluted with the fresh chyle from the subclavian vein, it continues of the same dark colour till it passes through the lungs, upon which it instantly assumes a very florid red; but it can never be proved that the globules in the pulmonary vein are at all less numerous than in the pulmonary artery.—That this change of colour may be effected by the air through membranes much thicker than we can suppose the vessels of the lungs to be, has been demonstrated by Dr Priestley, but whether the change is occasioned by the mere separation of some principle from the blood, or by the absorption of another in its stead, is not yet determined, though the latter is indeed acknowledged by Dr Priestley himself to be the more probable opinion. He even supposes the redness to be owing to a portion of dephlogisticated air absorbed in the lungs. It must therefore be the elastic principle of this air, which is absorbed, while the other combined with part of the phlogiston emitted by the blood is converted into fixed air.

This leads us to consider the uses to which the blood of the is subservient in the animal economy, and the changes that happen to it in respiration. The uses of this fluid are so various, and of such an important nature, that some have not scrupled to affirm the blood to be actually possessed of a living principle, and that the life of the whole body is derived from it. This opinion was first broached by the celebrated Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation: but in this he was never much followed; and the hypothesis itself, indeed, has been pretty much laid aside and neglected, till of late that it was revived by Mr J. Hunter, professor of anatomy in London. This gentleman supports his opinion by the following arguments: 1. The blood unites living parts, in some circumstances, as certainly as the yet recent juices of the branch of one tree unite it with that of another. Were either of these fluids to be considered as extraneous or dead matters, he thinks they would act as stimuli, and no union would take place in the animal or vegetable kingdom. This argument, Mr Hunter imagines, is still farther established by the following experiment. Having taken off the teficle from a living cock, he introduced it into the belly of a living hen. Many weeks afterwards, upon injecting the liver of the hen, he injected the teficle of the cock; which had come in contact with the liver, and adhered to it. He alleges, that in the nature of things, there is not a more intimate connection between life and a solid, than between life and a fluid. For although we are more accustomed to connect it with the one than the other, yet the only real difference which can be shown between a solid and a fluid is, that the particles of the one are less moveable among themselves than those of the other. Besides, we often see the same body fluid in one case and solid in another. 2. The blood becomes vascular like other living parts. Mr Hunter affirms, that, after amputations, the coagula in the extremities of arteries may be injected by injecting these arteries; and he has a preparation in which he thinks he can demonstrate vessels rising from the centre of what had been a coagulum of blood, and opening into the stream of the circulating blood. 3. Blood taken from the arm in the most intense cold which the human body can bear, raises the thermometer to the same height as blood taken in the most fultry heat. This he considers as a strong proof of the blood's being alive; as living bodies alone have the power of resisting great degrees both of heat and cold, and of maintaining in almost every situation, while in health, that temperature which we distinguish by the name of animal heat. 4. Blood is capable of being acted upon by a stimulus. In proof of this, he observes, that it coagulates from exposure, as certainly as the cavities of the abdomen and thorax inflame from the same cause. The more it is alive, that is, the more the animal is in health, it coagulates the sooner on exposure; and the more it has lost of its living principle, as in the case of violent inflammations, the less is it sensible to the stimulus produced from its being exposed, and it coagulates the later. 5. The blood preserves life in different parts of the body. When the nerves going to a part are tied or cut, the part becomes paralytic, and loses all power of motion; but it does not mortify. If the artery be cut, the part dies, and mortification ensues. What keeps it alive in the first case? Mr Hunter believes it is the living principle which alone can keep it alive; and he thinks that this phenomenon is inexplicable on any other supposition, than that life is supported by the blood. 6. Another argument he draws from the case of a fractured os humeri he had occasion to observe. A man was brought into St George's hospital for a simple fracture of the os humeri, and died about a month after the accident. As the bones had not united, Mr Hunter injected the arm after death. He found that the cavity between the extremities of the bones was filled up with blood which had coagulated. This blood was become vascular. In some places it was very much so. He does not maintain that all coagulated blood becomes vascular; and indeed the reason is obvious; for it is often thrown out and coagulated in parts where its becoming vascular could answer no end in the system: as, for example, in the cavities of aneurismal sacs. If it be supposed, that, in such cases as that just now mentioned, the vessels are not formed in the coagulum, but come from the neighbouring arteries, he thinks it equally an argument that the blood is alive; for the substance into which vessels shoot must be so. The very idea that such a quantity of dead matter as the whole mass of blood circulates in a living body, appears to him absurd.

The system which at present stands opposed to that of Mr Hunter, considers the brain and nervous system as the fountain of life; and that, so far from receiving its alone life from the blood, the nervous system is capable of instantly changing the crafis of the blood, or any other animal fluid; and though the nervous system cannot continue its action for any length of time if the eipile action of the blood-vessels is suspended, yet the heart and blood-vessels cannot act for a single moment without the influence of the nervous fluid. Hence, say they, it is plain, we must suppose the nervous system, and not the blood, to contain properly the life of the animal, and consequently to be the principal vital organ. The secretion of the vital fluid from the blood by means of the brain, is, by the supporters of this hypothesis, denied. They say, that any fluid secreted from the blood must be aqueous, inelastic, and inactive; whereas the nervous fluid is full of vigour, elastic, and volatile in the highest degree. The great necessity for the circulation of the blood through all parts of the body, notwithstanding the presence of the nervous fluid in the same parts, they say is, because some degree of tension is necessary to be given to the fibres, in order to fit them for the influx of the nervous fluid; and this tension they receive from the repletion of the blood-vessels, which are everywhere dispersed along with the nerves.

To follow this dispute through every argument that hath been, or that may be, used by both parties, would prove tedious, and to us appears in a great measure unnecessary, as the following short considerations seem to decide the matter absolutely against the patrons of the nervous system. In the first place, then, if we can prove the life of the human body to have existed in, or guments in to have been communicated from a fluid to the nervous system, the analogical argument will be very strongly in favour of the supposition that the case is so still. Now, that the case once was so, is most evident; for the human body, as well as the body of every other living creature, in its first state, is well known to be a gelatinous mass, without muscles, nerves, or blood-vessels. Nevertheless, this gelatinous matter, even at that time, contained the nervous fluid. Of this there can be no doubt, because the nerves were formed out of it, and had their power originally from it; and what is remarkable, the brain is observed to be that part of the animal which is first formed. Of this gelatinous fluid we can give no other account, than that it was the nutritious matter from which the whole body appears to be formed. At the original formation of man, and other animals, therefore, the nutritious matter was the subtratum of the whole body, consisting of muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, &c. nay more, it was the immediate efficient cause of the nervous power itself. Why should it not be so now as well as then! Again, in the formation of the embryo, we see a vital principle existing as it were at large, and forming to itself a kind of regulator to its own motions, or a habitation in which it chooses to reside, rather than to act at random in the fluid. This habitation, or regulator, was undoubtedly the nervous system, and continues so to this moment; but at the same time, it is no less evident that a nutritious fluid was the immediate origin of these same nerves, and of that very nervous fluid. Now we know, that the fluid which in the womb nourishes the bodies of all embryo animals, is necessarily equivalent to the blood which nourishes the bodies of adult ones; and consequently, as soon as the blood became the only nutritious juice of the body, at that same time the vital or nervous fluid took up its residence there, and from the blood diffused itself along the nerves, where it was regulated exactly according to the model originally formed in the embryo. Perhaps it may be said, that the vital power, when once it hath taken possession of the human or any other body, requires no addition or supply, but continues there in the same quantity from first to last. If we suppose the nervous power to be immaterial, this will indeed be the case, and there is an end of reasoning upon the subject; but if we call this power a volatile and elastic fluid, it is plain that there will be more occasion for recruits to such a power than to any other fluid of the body, as its volatility and elasticity will promote its escape in great quantities through every part of the body. It may also be objected, that it is absurd to suppose any fluid, or mechanical cause, capable of putting matter in such a form as to direct its own motions in a particular way: but even of this we have a positive proof in the case of the electric fluid. For if any quantity of this matter has a tendency to go from one place to another where it meets with difficulty, through the air for instance, it will throw small conducting substances before it, in order to facilitate its progress. Also, if a number of small and light conducting substances are laid between two metallic bodies, so as to form a circle, for example; a shock of electricity will destroy that circle, and place the small conducting substances nearer to a straight line between the two metals, as if the fluid knew there was a shorter passage, and resolved to take that, if it should have occasion to return*. Lastly, it is universally allowed, that the brain is a secretory organ, made up of an infinite number of small glands, which have no other excretories than the medullary fibres and nerves. As a considerable quantity of blood is carried to the brain, and the minute arteries end in these small glands, it follows, that the fluid, whatever it is, must come from the blood. Now, there is no gland whatever, in the human, or any other body, but will discharge the fluid it is appointed to secrete, in a very considerable quantity, if its excretory is cut. Upon the cutting of a nerve, therefore, the fluid secreted by the brain ought to be discharged; but no such discharge is visible. A small quantity of glairy matter is indeed discharged from the large nerves; but this can be no other than the nutritious juice necessary for their support. This makes it plain, even to demonstration, that the fluid secreted in the brain is invisible in its nature; and as we know the nervous fluid hath its residence in the brain, it is very probable, to use no stronger impression, that it is the peculiar province of the brain to secrete this fluid from the blood, and consequently that the blood originally contains the vital principle.

After it is allowed that the blood contains the vital Vivifying principle, it becomes another question not very easily spirit supposed, Whence is this vital principle derived?—For derived this we can only discover two sources; namely, the chyle from the or aliment from which the blood is prepared, and re-air respiration. The latter hath been commonly held as the principal source of the vital principle; and, for a long time, it was generally thought that there was a kind of vivifying spirit in the air, which being absorbed by the blood at each inspiration, communicated to that fluid the quality necessary for preserving animal life. As a proof of this it was urged, that life cannot be supported without respiration, and that air which hath been often breathed ceases to be capable of supporting life; because when once it has been totally deprived of its vivifying spirit, it can communicate none to the blood in any subsequent respirations.—This doctrine, however, This docthath been denied, and generally thought to be exploded, trine for by modern discoveries. Dr Hales brings several generally experiments against it; of which the following may denied. serve for a specimen, and which we shall give in his own words.

"I tied a middle-sized dog alive on a table, and, Dr Hales's having laid bare his windpipe, I cut it asunder just below the larynx, and fixed fast to it the small end of a common fosset: the other end of the fosset had a large vivifying bladder tied to it, which contained 162 cubic inches of spirit. Sta- and to the other end of the bladder was tied the great vol. i. p. end of another fosset whose orifice was covered with a 255- valve that opened inwards, so as to admit any air that was blown into the bladder, but none could return that way; yet, for further security, that passage was also flopped by a spigot.

"As soon as the first fosset was tied fast to the wind- pipe, the bladder was blown full of air through the other fosset; when the dog had breathed the air in the bladder to and fro for a minute or two, he then breathed very fast, and showed great uneasiness, as being almost suffocated.

"Then with my hand I pressed the bladder hard, so as to drive the air into his lungs with some force; and thereby made his abdomen rise by the pressure of the diaphragm, as in natural breathings; then taking alternately my hand off the bladder, the lungs with the abdomen subsided: I continued in this manner to make the dog breathe for an hour; during which time, I was obliged to blow fresh air into the bladder every five minutes, three parts in four of that air being either absorbed by the vapours in the lungs, or escaping through the ligatures upon my pressing hard on the bladder.

"During this hour, the dog was frequently near expiring, whenever I pressed the air but weakly into his lungs; as I found by his pulse, which was very plain to be felt in the great crural artery near the groin, which place an affiant held his finger on most part of the time; but the languid pulse was accelerated so as to beat fast, soon after I dilated the lungs much by pressing hard upon the bladder; especially when the motion of the lungs was promoted by pressing alternately the abdomen and the bladder, whereby both the contraction and dilatation of the lungs were increased.

"And I could by this means rouse the languid pulse whenever I pleased, not only at the end of every five minutes, when more air was blown into the bladder from a man's lungs, but also towards the end of the five minutes, when the air was fullest of fumes.

"At the end of the hour, I intended to try whether I could have by the same means kept the dog alive some time longer, when the bladder was filled with the fumes of burning brimstone; but being obliged to cease for a little time from pressing the air into his lungs, while matters were preparing for this additional experiment, in the mean time the dog died, which might otherwise have lived longer if I had continued to force the air into the lungs.

"Now, though this experiment was so frequently disturbed, by being obliged to blow more air into the bladder 12 times during the hour; yet since he was almost suffocated in less than two minutes, by breathing of himself to and fro the first air in the bladder, he would have died in less than two minutes when one-fourth of the old air remained in the bladder immediately to taint the new air admitted from a man's lungs; so that his continuing to live through the whole hour, must be owing to the forcible dilatation of the lungs by compressing the bladder, and not to the vivifying spirit of the air."

Dr Priestley at first concluded from his own observations, and no doubt very justly, that air which hath been often breathed becomes pernicious by its accumulated phlogiston, stimulating the lungs, and making the animal fall into convulsions. Respiration, therefore, he supposed to be a phlogistic process, in which the blood parts with its superfluous phlogiston. He did not lay, that the blood receives nothing in exchange; but rather that it may receive some nitrous principle, which gives it the red colour; but as to a vivifying spirit, he doth not appear to have the least idea of any such thing being received at that time. Nay, in his first volume, p. 277, he expressly adopts the other hypothesis, namely, that the vital principle is received from the chyle. "My conjecture (says he) is, that animals have a power of converting phlogiston, from the state in which they receive it in their nutriment, into that state in which it is called the electrical fluid; that the brain, besides its other proper uses, is the great laboratory and repository for this purpose; that by means of the nerves this great principle, thus exalted, is directed into the muscles, and forces them to act in the same manner as they are forced into action, when the electric fluid is thrown in them ab extra."

These theories were opposed in the former edition of this work. With regard to Dr Hales's opinion, that the want of elasticity, or pressure, is the reason why phlogisticated air cannot support animal life, we apprehended it to be totally inconclusive, because it doth not at all appear that phlogisticated air wants elasticity; on the contrary, from Dr Priestley's experiments it appears to be more elastic than common air. Besides, we know that the elasticity of every fluid must always be in proportion to the pressure upon it, as reaction is always equal to action. Supposing therefore the elasticity of any portion of air to be destroyed, the pressure of the superincumbent atmosphere will reduce it into a proportionably less bulk, and then it is equally elastic with the rest; for if it was not, it would behave it still to yield under the pressure. Hence we may see, that as the bladder made use of in Dr Hales's experiment was by no means sufficient to keep off the pressure of the external atmosphere, the death of the dog could not be fairly ascribed to want of elasticity in the tainted air. When he applied more force than the natural elasticity of the air, he kept the dog alive, as he calls it, for an hour; but we can by no means allow a mechanical circulation of the blood to be life, any more than we can allow a dead body to be alive on account of the motion of its arm or any other member by mechanical means. The experiment, however, is valuable, because it shows that respiration is one of the immediate mechanical agents by which the circulation of the blood is carried on; but in order to prove that the dog was really kept alive by this means, he ought to have recovered from the effects of the experiment. Had Dr Hales tried a similar experiment on himself, by taking the fetid in his mouth, closing his nostrils, and causing another person compressthe bladder, we have not the least doubt that he would then have felt such a method of breathing not to be a way of preserving life, but of destroying it.

As to Dr Priestley's conclusions, it was argued, that "though he found air diminished by admitting phlogiston to it, Dr Priestley finds the mere accession of any tion, &c. material substance can never diminish, but must increase its bulk. The diminution, therefore, on the accession of phlogiston, is an evident proof that some part of the air is actually taken away. That the phlogiston received is not incorporated with the air is likewise evident, as well as that it takes up space in the tainted air, because, by agitation in water, the phlogistic matter separates from the air, and enters into the water. The consequence of this is, that the air is still farther diminished in bulk; and what remains is pure air, fit for supporting animal life, and of being farther diminished by phlogiston as before. It appears also certain, that phlogiston is not endowed with any inherent power by which it can expand itself; otherwise it would fly off in vacuo, which it is never known to do. Another circumstance we must also attend to is, that the action of phlogiston seems to be entirely confined to a particular part of the atmosphere; namely, that which is now so well known by the name of fixed air. This it entirely deprives of its elastic principle, so that it is actually no longer air, but becomes a solid substance, making a part, and that no inconsiderable one, of innumerable terrestrial substances, as chalk, limestone, &c."

That the justice of the conclusion about to be drawn from Dr Priestley's experiments may be more apparent, the phenomena were summed up in the two following propositions. "1. Phlogiston cannot act by itself without the assistance of air. 2. The emission of phlogiston is attended with the total destruction of the elasticity of a certain quantity of fixed air, which then ceases to be fluid. Hence we affirm, that it is not the phlogistic substance which acts upon the air, but the why a elastic principle in the fixed air contained in the com- phlogistic mon atmosphere that acts on the phlogistic substance, substance. This elastic principle, entering the phlogistic body, parts with displaces a quantity of phlogiston equivalent to its own quantity, quantity, and takes its place: and hence proceeds the first diminution of the air, not from an accession of phlogiston, but from an escape of the elastic principle belonging to fixed air. The phlogiston and fixed particles of the air now hang loose like smoke or vapour, and are ready to be attracted by any thing capable of imbibing them; and hence proceed the second diminution by agitation in water.

"Now to apply this reasoning to the point in question: The blood is found to emit phlogiston from the lungs at every expiration: therefore we affirm it hath received a proportional quantity of elastic vapour which it had not before. Again: The air expelled from the lungs is found to contain much of the fixable part floating loose, and capable of being attracted by lime-water, &c.; therefore we say, this elastic principle hath come from that part of the atmosphere. But, to put the matter beyond doubt, the very inspection of arterial and venous blood will show, that the first hath a quantity of elastic matter in it which the last wants; and as the brain as well as all other parts of the body are supplied with arterial blood, we think it abundantly evident, that this elastic principle is absolutely and essentially necessary to life; that it is continually expended thereon; and that it may be said with the utmost propriety, that every time we draw the air into our lungs, we receive a portion of vivifying or vital spirit from it into our blood. Add to all this, that many substances which are commonly observed to phlogisticate air, appear to receive an elastic spirit by so doing. Putrefying bodies swell; they would not do so in vacuo; and therefore we must conclude, that they receive this elastic principle which swells them from the external air; and experience shows that it is communicated by this fixable part of the atmosphere.

"The foregoing reasoning, which to us appeared sufficiently conclusive, leads to a very important discovery in natural philosophy, viz. That it is to the atmosphere, and to that particular part of it which goes by the name of fixed air, that we are every moment indebted for that vital spirit which animates our bodies, and is the immediate bond of union betwixt our immaterial spirit and this visible world. It may be asked indeed, If fixed air is capable of supplying this spirit in such plenty, how comes it to be so instantaneously fatal when breathed? The reply to this, however, is obvious: it communicates too great a degree of elasticity to the blood; whence the circulation is stopped, and infant death ensues. That this is really the case, appears from the following account of the symptoms observed on the diffusion of persons who have been suffocated by this kind of air.

"1. The vessels of the brain are gorged with blood, and the ventricles of that viscus are filled sometimes with a frothy, sometimes with a bloody, serosity. 2. The trunk of the pulmonary artery is much diffended, and the lungs appear nearly in a natural state. 3. The right ventricle and auricle of the heart, the vena cava, and the jugular veins, are full of frothy blood. 4. Bloody effusion of serosity is often found in the bronchiae. 5. The trunk of the pulmonary veins, and the left auricle, are either empty, or almost empty, of blood. 6. The blood found in the places that have been mentioned is generally fluid, and as it were in a dissolved state. It is easily extravasated into the cellular texture, of the head particularly, because it is in this part that it abounds most. 7. The epiglottis in suffocated persons is raised, and the glottis open and free. 8. The tongue is much fwelved, and can hardly be contained within the mouth. 9. The eyes protrude, and preserve their lustre to the second or third day. They are often even brighter than natural. 10. The body preserves its heat for a long time. Nay the heat is sometimes greater than it is during life, or at least consistently with health. 11. The limbs are flexible for a long time after death. 12. The face is more swelled, and often more red than usual. 13. The neck and upper extremities are sometimes so much swelled, that they appear to be inflamed. These swellings, however, do not, like oedematous ones, preserve the impressions of the finger.

"This account seemed to much in favour of what we had already advanced concerning the action of fixed supposed air, that no observation was made upon it farther than the cause that this elastic principle would seem also to be the cause of animal-heat; for as the blood evidently received a vast quantity of elastic fluid, it also received a much greater proportion of heat than usual."

Such was the mode of reasoning adopted at that time, derived from the discoveries which had been made in Aerology. Succeeding discoveries, however, have made it evident, that fixed air is not one of the natural component parts of our atmosphere, but that it consists of two different fluids; one of which has been called phlogisticated, the other dephlogisticated, air. It is the latter which supplies the vital principle; and the above reasoning still holds good, only substituting the words dephlogisticated air for fixed air. The poisonous quality of the latter seems also still to depend on its too easy decomposition; by which means the elastic principle is discharged into the blood in such quantity as to burst the small vessels, as has already been observed. This is shewn indeed by the remedies most proper for the recovery of those who have suffered from the noxious qualities of fixed air. These consist in evacuation, and especially sprinkling the body with cold water, in order to take off the superfluous heat, and produce an universal contraction of the vessels.

It now remains only to give some account of the Circulation: means by which the circulation of the blood is carried on in the living body. From the time of Harvey till how carried very lately, this was supposed to be chiefly the muscular power of the heart and arteries, which by some physiologists have been thought to be prodigiously great; and accordingly many calculations, requiring no small degree of mathematical knowledge to understand them, have been made of the forces requisite to perform this circulation. Other physiologists, however, have thought proper to take in several auxiliary helps, as the motion of the muscles, respiration, &c. and from Dr Hales's experiment above mentioned, it appears that respiration hath a considerable influence in this matter. It cannot, however, be the sole cause, seeing the circulation is carried on in animals which do not respire.—In 1773, Dr Wilton, in the lecture already quoted, suggested a new principle of motion, which we believe was never used before to account for the circulation of animal fluids. It is shortly this: "As the Fluids of the New human body do all of them suffer a continual waste, and they consequently require a constant supply in proportion, Dr Wilton we must look upon their going out of the body to be the end of their motion, and on their entering into the body to be the beginning of it; and hence we are to look for the origin of all the motion of the fluids in that part of the system where the new supplies are taken in. This is the prime vice, where the lacteals absorb a fluid from the digested aliment, and convey it into the blood. The power by which this is accomplished, is necessarily independent of the heart, as having not the least connexion with it. It has been said to be the same with that which causes fluidrise in the capillary tubes; but though very probably the powers in both cases may be the same, there is this remarkable difference between them, that in the capillary tubes the fluids only rise to a certain height, and will not rise at all unless the tubes are empty. In the lacteals they rise in vessels already full, and continue to do so. Neither is the force whereby this absorption is performed to be accounted little; seeing the supply by the chyle must constantly be equal to the waste which is continually taking place in the fluids already contained in the vessels. We see also with what force an absorption of this kind sometimes takes place in other cases; thus ropes will absorb water with such strength as to raise immense weights fastened to them, and which no mechanical injection of water into small tubes could possibly accomplish. What is already said of the lacteals applies also to the lymphatics; and from thence we are almost tempted to conclude, that the case is the same with the sanguiferous veins also; that though there may be a continuation of some arteries into the veins corresponding with them, yet that for the most part these vessels extravasate the blood into small cavities, which is then taken up by the absorbtive power of the veins, and returned to the heart.

"If, however, the vessels continued absolutely full, it would be impossible that any motion should be carried on in them; and to continue and regulate the circulation, the heart with its cavities is provided. Let us suppose, that by the above-mentioned power the veins are all full, and the auricles or chambers into which the veins empty themselves are full also; where is the collected stream in the veins to go next? There is no room for more in the auricle. What must be done? The auricle contracts and empties itself. The consequence is a sudden vacuum equal to what the auricle could contain; the turgid veins, urged by the absorbing power above mentioned, rush their contents into the auricle to fill up the vacuum again; and all behind moving in the venous direction advances forward with so much force, that the veins near the heart sustain a pulsation from the regurgitation of the impetuous stream, when the auricle shuts upon it to empty itself. In short, the full auricle occupies a determinate quantity of space in the breast: when it is emptied, there is a non-refilling vacuum of so much space as was full before, and thither there is a mechanical influx from the remotest filament of a vein over the whole body, which becomes conspicuous in the torrent that rushes every other moment from the mouth of the vena cava into this vacuum."

This is a short abstract of Dr Wilson's new theory of the circulation. According to him, this absorbing power of the veins is the principal agent, while the heart and arteries do no more than empty themselves of the blood with which they are filled by the veins.

Even this cause, however, he says, would not be sufficient to carry on the circulation for a single moment, without the presence of another which he calls life, and does not consider as absolutely unmechanical, though we cannot reduce it either to mechanical rules or ideas. But as we apprehend all speculations concerning such causes must be arbitrary and without foundation, we forbear to give any account of the Doctor's opinions on this subject.

It hath been a general opinion, that blood, as it exists in the bodies of animals, contains a considerable quantity of common air; and indeed it is certain, that blood, after it has been drawn from the veins of any animal, and afterwards placed under the receiver of an air-pump, yields a very considerable quantity of air upon exhausting the receiver: but if a portion of any blood-vessel is tied up so as to prevent the escape of its contents, and then cut out of the body and placed under a receiver, it will not swell, or show the least sign of its containing any quantity of air whatever.

Blood was formerly held in great esteem as a medicinal cure for some particular diseases. Baths of the blood of other infants have been recommended as an infallible remedy for the elephantiasis, &c.; and the blood of goats and some other animals was used by the Galenists, and is recommended even by Dr Mead in pluries: but the first abominable medicine, as well as the other, is now deservedly exploded. The principal use of blood in the arts is for making Prussian blue, or sometimes for clarifying certain liquors; it is also recommended in agriculture as an excellent manure for fruit-trees. A mixture of blood with lime makes an exceedingly strong cement; and hence it is of use in the preparation of some chemical lutes, the making floors *, &c. As a food it hath been disputed whether blood really affords any nourishment or not. The best judges, now, however, are generally agreed that it is very nutritious; and though out of the body, like the white of an egg, it is very insoluble, yet, like that too, in the body it is commonly of easy digestion. It is, however, highly alkaline in hot climates: on which account the prohibition of it to the Israelites was very proper. Even in this country, when blood was used as food in great quantity, the scurvy was more frequent than at other times; but to a moderate use of it here no such objection takes place.

In some countries, we are told that the barbarians were accustomed to intoxicate themselves by drinking the warm blood of animals; and as it has been shewn that this fluid is the immediate reservoir of the vital principle, it seems by no means improbable that it may be possessed of an inebriating quality. Some expressions in Scripture seem to countenance this hypothesis.

Religious uses of Blood. Among the ancients blood was used for the sealing and ratifying covenants and alliances, which was done by the contracting parties drinking a little of each others blood; and for appeasing the manes of the dead; in order to which blood was offered on their tombs as part of the funeral ceremony.

The blood of victims was anciently the portion of the gods; and accordingly was poured or sprinkled on the altars in oblation to them.

The priests made another use of blood, viz. for divination: Blood. tion: the streaming of blood from the earth, fire, and the like, was held a prodigy or omen of evil.

The Roman priests were not unacquainted with the use of blood in miracles; they had their fluxes of blood from images, ready to serve a turn; witnesses that said to have streamed from the statue of Minerva at Modena, before the battle at that place. But we know not whether in this their successors have not gone beyond them. How many relations in ecclesiastical writers of Madonos, crucifixes, and wafers, bleeding? At least the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius at Naples, repeated annually for so many ages, seems to transcend by far all the frauds of the Grecian or Roman priesthood. But the chemists at last got into the secret; and we find M. Neumann at Berlin to have performed the miracle of the liquefaction of dried blood, with all the circumstances of the Neapolitan experiment.

Among the schoolmen we find a famous dispute, under Pope Pius II. whether the blood of Christ, which fell from him in the three days passion, retained or lost the hypostatic union; and consequently whether it was the proper object of adoration. The Dominicans maintained the former, the Franciscans the latter. It seems the Dominican doctrine gained the ascendant, as being fitted to favour the profits of the monks; who becoming possessed some way or other of a few drops of this precious liquor, were secured of ample offerings from the deluded laity, who flocked to pay their homage to the sacred relic. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have first brought into Britain two silver vessels filled with the blood of Christ, which by his order was buried in his tomb. King Henry III. had a crystal, containing a portion of the same blood, sent him by the master of the temple at Jerusalem, attested with the seals of the patriarch; which treasure the king committed to the church of St Peter's, Westminster, and obtained from the bishops an indulgence of six years and 116 days to all that should visit it. Mat. Paris even assures us, that the king summoning his nobles and prelates to celebrate the feast of St Edward in St Peter's church, was chiefly pro veneratio sancti janguiis Christi nuper adepti, "in veneration of the holy blood of Christ lately acquired." Divers others of our monasteries were possessed of this profitable relic; as the college of Bons Hommes at Ashridge, and the abbey of Hales, to whom it was given by Henry, son of Richard duke of Cornwall and king of the Romans. To it resorted a great concourse of people for devotion and adoration; till in 1538, as the Reformation took place, it was perceived to be only honey clarified and coloured with saffron, as was shown at St Paul's cross by the bishop of Rochester. The like discovery was made of the blood of Christ, found among the relics in the abbey of Fefchamp in Normandy, pretended to have been preserved by Nicodemus, when he took the body from the cross, and given to that abbey by William duke of Normandy; it was buried by his son Richard, and again discovered in 1171, and attended with different miracles; but the cheat, which had been long winked at, was at length exposed, the relation of which is given by Speed.

Avenger of Blood, among the Jews, was the next of kin to the person murdered, who was to pursue the murderer.

Ecclesiastical judges retire, when judgment is to be given in cases of blood, by reason the church is supposed to abhor blood: it condemns no person to death; and its members become irregular, or disabled from their functions, by the effusion of blood.

Field of Blood, in Syriac Aceldama, was a field purchased by the Jews with the thirty pieces of silver which had been given to Judas for betraying his master, and which he had restored. It still serves for a burial ground, in which all pilgrims who die in their pilgrimage at Jerusalem, are interred.

Blood-Hounds, in Zoology, the canis sagax of Linnaeus*, le chien courant of Buffon, the sleuthhounds of*See Canis, the Scots: The hound or dog, with long, smooth, and pendulous ears. It was a dog of great use, and in high esteem with our ancestors: its employ was to recover any game that had escaped wounded from the hunter, or been killed and stole out of the forest. It was remarkable for the acuteness of its smell, tracing the lost beast by the blood it had spilt; from whence the name is derived. This species could, with the utmost certainty, discover the thief by following his footsteps, let the distance of his flight be ever so great, and through the most secret and thickest coverts; nor would it cease its pursuit till it had taken the felon. They were likewise used by Wallace and Bruce during the civil wars. The poetical historians of the two heroes frequently relate very curious passages on this subject; of the service these dogs were of to their masters, and the escapes they had from those of the enemy. The blood-hound was in great request on the confines of England and Scotland; where the borderers were continually preying on the herds and flocks of their neighbours. The true blood-hound was large, strong, muscular, broad-breasted, of a stern countenance, of a deep tan-colour, and generally marked with a black spot above each eye.

Blood-Shotten. See Ophththalmia, Medicine Index. Blood Spaven. See Farriery Index. Spitting of Blood, or Haemoptoe. See Medicine Index.

Whole and Half Blood; a kinsman of the whole blood is he that is derived from the same couple of ancestors; whereas a person of half blood descends from either of them singly by a second marriage.

Blood of Christ, the name of a military order instituted at Mantua in 1608. The number of knights was restricted to 20, besides the grand-master. Their device was, Domine, probasti me; or, Nihil hoc, triste, recepto: "Lord, thou hast proved me;" or, "Fortified by this, no evil can prevail."

Precious Blood, a denomination given to a reformed congregation of Bernardine nuns at Paris, first established under that name in 1661.

Dragon's Blood. See Dragon. Blood-Stone. See Hematites, Mineralogy Index. Blood-Vessels. See Anatomy Index. Blood-White, in ancient law writers, signifies blood, and a customary amercement paid as a composition for the shedding or drawing of blood. The word is also written bloodwhite, blodwita, blodwyta, bloodwit, bloodwit, bloodwit, and bluidwit. It is formed from the ancient Saxon blud, "blood," and withe or wite, "a fine or penalty." The word also denotes an exemption from this penalty, penalty, granted by the king to certain persons and communities as a special favour. King Henry II. granted to all tenants within the honour of Wallingford— Ut quieti sint de hidagio et blodwite et bredwite.

BLOOD-Wort. See Rumex, BOTANY Index.

Thomas, generally known by the appellation of Colonel Blood, was a disbanded officer of Oliver Cromwell's, famous for his daring crimes and his good fortune. He was first distinguished by engaging in a conspiracy to surprize the castle of Dublin; which was defeated by the vigilance of the duke of Ormond, and some of his accomplices were executed. Escaping to England, he meditated revenge against Ormond; and actually feized him one night in his coach at St James's street, where he might have finisht his purpose if he had not studied refinements in his vengeance. He bound him on horseback behind one of his associates, resolving to hang him at Tyburn, with a paper pinned to his breast: but, when they got into the fields, the duke, in his efforts for liberty, threw himself and the assasin, to whom he was fastened, to the ground; and, while they were struggling in the mire, he was rescued by his servants; but the authors of this attempt were not then discovered. A little after, in 1671, Blood formed a design of carrying off the crown and regalia from the Tower; a design to which he was prompted, as well by the surprising boldness of the enterprise, as by the views of profit. He was very near succeeding. He had bound and wounded Edwards the keeper of the jewel-office, and had got out of the Tower with his prey; but was overtaken and feized, with some of his associates. One of them was known to have been concerned in the attempt upon Ormond; and Blood was immediately concluded to be the ringleader. When questioned, he frankly avowed the enterprise; but refused to discover his accomplices. "The fear of death (he said) should never engage him either to deny a guilt or betray a friend." All these extraordinary circumstances made him the general subject of conversation; and the king was moved with an idle curiosity to see and speak with a person so noted for his courage and his crimes. Blood might now esteem himself secure of pardon; and he wanted not address to improve the opportunity. He told Charles, that he had been engaged, with others, in a design to kill him with a carbine above Battersea, where his majesty often went to bathe; that the cause of this resolution was the severity exercised over the consciences of the godly, in restraining the liberty of their religious assemblies: that when he had taken his stand among the reeds, full of these bloody resolutions, he found his heart checked with an awe of majesty; and he not only relented himself, but diverted his associates from their purpose: that he had long ago brought himself to an entire indifference about life, which he now gave for lost; yet could he not forbear warning the king of the danger which might attend his execution: that his associates had bound themselves by the strictest oaths to revenge the death of any of their confederacy; and that no precaution or power could secure any one from the effect of their desperate resolutions. Whether these confederations excited fear or admiration in the king, they confirmed his resolution of granting a pardon to Blood; but he thought it a requisite point of decency first to obtain the duke of Ormond's consent. Arlington came to Ormond in the king's name, and desired that he would not prosecute Blood, for reasons which he was commanded to give him. The duke replied, that his majesty's commands were the only reason that could be given: and being sufficient, he might therefore spare the rest. Charles carried his kindnels to 'Blood still farther; he granted him an estate of 500l. a-year in Ireland; he encouraged his attendance about his person; he showed him great countenance; and many applied to him for promoting their pretensions at court. And while old Edwards, who had bravely ventured his life, and had been wounded, in defending the crown and regalia, was forgotten and neglected, this man, who deserved only to be stoned at and detested as a monster, became a kind of favourite. Blood enjoyed his pension about ten years, till being charged with fixing an imputation of a scandalous nature on the duke of Buckingham, he was thrown into prison, where he died August 24, 1680.