Serous Fluids

Serous Fluids, various fluids occurring in the animal body, are arranged by Gorup-Besanez under three heads: (1) Those which are contained in the serous sacs of the body, as the cerebro-spinal fluid, the pericardial fluid, the peritoneal fluid, the pleural fluid, the fluid of the tunica vaginalis testis, and the synovial fluid; (2) the tears and the fluids existing in the eyeball, the amniotic fluid, and transudations into the tissue of organs; (3) morbid or excessive transudations, such as dropsical fluids, the fluids occurring in hydatids, and in blebs and vesicles on the skin, and transudations from the blood in the intestinal capillaries, as in cases of intestinal catarrh, cholera, or dysentery. All these fluids bear a close resemblance to one another, both in their physical and chemical characters. In so far as relates to their physical characters they are usually clear and transparent, colourless or slightly yellow, of a slight saline, mawkish taste, and exhibiting an alkaline reaction with test-paper. They possess no special formal or histological elements, but on a microscopic examination blood-corpuscles, cells of various kinds, molecular granules, and epithelium may occasionally be observed in them. The ordinary chemical constituents of these fluids are water, fibrin (occasionally), albumen, the fats, animal soaps, cholesterol, extractive matters, urea (occasionally), the same inorganic salts which are found in the serum of the blood, and the same gases as occur in the blood.