All blood is contained in a vascular system, to wit, the
veins, and is found nowhere else, excepting in the heart. Blood is not
sensitive to touch in any animal, any more than the excretions of
the stomach; and the case is similar with the brain and the marrow.
When flesh is lacerated, blood exudes, if the animal be alive and
unless the flesh be gangrened. Blood in a healthy condition is
naturally sweet to the taste, and red in colour, blood that
deteriorates from natural decay or from disease more or less black.
Blood at its best, before it undergoes deterioration from either
natural decay or from disease, is neither very thick nor very thin. In
the living animal it is always liquid and warm, but, on issuing from
the body, it coagulates in all cases except in the case of the deer,
the roe, and the like animals; for, as a general rule, blood
coagulates unless the fibres be extracted. Bull's blood is the
quickest to coagulate.
Animals that are internally and externally viviparous are more
abundantly supplied with blood than the sanguineous ovipara. Animals
that are in good condition, either from natural causes or from their
health having been attended to, have the blood neither too abundant-as
creatures just after drinking have the liquid inside them in
abundance-nor again very scanty, as is the case with animals when
exceedingly fat.
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