Its characters are nearly those of the former, as regards the outer aspect of the coagula and of the exudates, only more strongly developed. Thus, the opacity of the coagula and of the exudate-fibrin is more considerable; their coloration, where they do not include blood-corpuscles, more decidedly of a greenish-yellow. Their metamorphosis consists in rapid, puriform liquefaction.

More narrowly scrutinized, the coagula are found to consist of a fine, dense point-molecule, of nucleus- and cell-formations in different degrees of completeness and of assimilation to the pus-cell. These are held together through the instrumentality of an amorphous bond-mass. Engendered during life, they break up - the blastema liquefying - into a tenacious fluid, in which the elements specified are held in suspension; and which, in proportion as the cells predominate, more and more resembles pus. [See "Fibrin 4."]

The exudates, corresponding in character with the usually hyperinotic condition of the blood, are generally very copious, exhausting, of a yellowish or a greenish-yellow tint, imperfectly adherent to the exudation-surface, rapidly liquescent to a puriform fluid, and of a form-composition identical with that of the coagula. [See Croupous Exudate /B].

In both the coagula and the exudates, the basement or blastema connecting the form-elements has lost the fibrillation so characteristic of coagulating normal fibrin, and even the glebe-like structure.

Certain conditions are common to both varieties of the croupous crasis [a and /B]; to the latter, however, they apply in a higher degree.

Both become localized in the shape of exudatory processes upon the mucous membranes, especially of the respiratory tract; in early youth, in the larynx and trachea; at a later period, in the bronchia; and from the period of puberty to the end of life, in the lungs [as laryngotracheal, as bronchial croup, and as croupous pneumonia]. Upon the mucous membrane of the womb, as also upon the great serous sacs, especially the peritoneum, with or without congenerous puerperal metritis, they become located, as puerperal processes; in the synovial sacs, as acute rheumatism; again, as endocarditis and inflammation of bloodvessels; lastly, in the areolar tissue, the pia mater, the spleen.

They also become localized as the metastatic deposits of capillary phlebitis.

The high grade of the internal dyscrasial influence is no doubt the cause why a protracted stasis is not requisite for product-formation; why, therefore, the exudation takes place very rapidly; and why, notwithstanding the great bulk of the exudate and the lax and vulnerable nature of the textures, it is not hemorrhagic; in other words, why it is not attended with any extensive laceration of the bloodvessels. There is little doubt that the pneumoniae stated by Hodgkin to enter at once into yellow and rapidly liquefying hepatization, belong to this class.

By long contact, the deliquescent coagula and exudates frequently exert a solvent, corrosive power upon the textures. In this manner they determine fresh inflammation, ulcerous loss of substance, phthisis of the organs, secondary phlebitis, pulmonary abscess, phthisis of the peritoneum, of the pleura, and, along with these, of the abdominal and thoracic parietes.

Or again, they become re-absorbed, or else, owing to the changes attendant upon their disintegration, they undergo, together with partial absorption, fatty conversion, usually followed by inspissation and crete-faction.

One further-phenomenon here finds its elucidation, namely, the milky blood. This has been witnessed in pneumonia and peritonitis, and we have ourselves encountered it in a developed form in pneumonia, and in very intense inflammation of the spleen. Such blood has been found to contain an excessive proportion of fat; it is, however, questionable whether this be the sole cause of the phenomenon. We believe the latter to be due rather to the disintegration of croupous fibrin within the circulation, in other words, to the suspension of the point-molecule [the molecular fibrin] in the blood-serum. It is very possible, indeed, that a fatty condition of the blood may contribute to produce the milky appearance; and not improbable that in some cases of a different kind, for example, in the blood of dram-drinkers, it may be the sole cause.

The rigor mortis manifests itself in the inverse ratio of the magnitude of the effusion, and the same inverse relation obtains between the latter and the intra-vascular fibrin-coagula. The blood is in part loosely clotted; for the most part fluid; owing to simultaneous loss of serum through exudation, tenacious; and of a dark cherry-red [defibrination]. It forms, in every variety of organs, dirty-red hypostases; death-patches become rapidly and extensively developed; the liver is dark-colored. The muscles are lax, the parenchymata collapsed, flabby, lacerable, moist, and where there is no hypostasis, pallid.