THE HEART AND ITS WONDERS.
What the Blood Is.-The blood — the pabulum of life — has not inaptly been termed “Liquid Flesh.” But it is more than that, since it contains materials so essential and so requisite for the building up and repair of every organ tissue of which the body is composed. The blood is the liquid by means of which the circulation in the body is carried on; it permeates every note and corner of the system, and is composed of a pen, colorless fluid, the plasma, filled with red discs, so small, flat and thin that it requires 3,500, placed side by side, to measure 1 inch, and no less than 18,000, placed one upon the other, to make a column 1 inch in height. These discs are continually forming and as constantly dying.

This section started off very strange with the reference to liquid flash, I think the author would have been wise to describe her point out this reference. As were only 50 pages into the book, I have the suspicion that there are going to be many very peculiar quoted references to sources that we will never know.

Than the author goes into his rapture about the human body and emotions of being in awe of the blood. That was somewhat to be expected.

Then we got to something interesting as they started to talk about the red discs. I suspect he’s referring to red blood cells, and the viewer perception that they were discs as they looked at it through a microscope. It probably didn’t really know what they were looking at yet and they could only get a descriptive name.