Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 26

See L. de la Saussaye, _Blois et ses environs_ (1873); _Histoire du chateau de Blois_ (1873); L. Bergevin et A. Dupre, _Histoire de Blois_ (1847).

BLOIS, COUNTSHIP OF. From 865 to about 940 the countship of Blois was one of those which were held in fee by the margrave of Neustria, Robert the Strong, and by his successors, the abbot Hugh, Odo (or Eudes), Robert II. and Hugh the Great. It then pa.s.sed, about 940 and for nearly three centuries, to a new family of counts, whose chiefs, at first va.s.sals of the dukes of France, Hugh the Great and Hugh Capet, became in 987, by the accession of the Capetian dynasty to the throne of France, the direct va.s.sals of the crown. These new counts were orjginally very powerful. With the countship of Blois they united, from 940 to 1044, that of Touraine, and from about 950 to 1218, and afterwards from 1269 to 1286, the countship of Chartres remained in their possession.

The counts of Blois of the house of the Theobalds (Thibauds) began with Theobald I., the Cheat, who became count about 940. He was succeeded by his son, Odo (Eudes) I., about 975. Theobald II., eldest son of Odo I., became count in 996, and was succeeded by Odo II., younger son of Odo I., about 1005. Odo II. was one of the most warlike barons of his time.

With the already considerable domains which he held from his ancestors, he united the heritage of his kinsman, Stephen I., count of Troyes. In 1033 he disputed the crown of Burgundy with the emperor, Conrad the Salic, and perished in 1037 while fighting in Lorraine. He was succeeded in 1037 by his eldest son, Theobald III., who was defeated by the Angevins in 1044, and was forced to give up the town of Tours and its dependencies to the count of Anjou. In 1089 Stephen Henry, eldest son of Theobald III., became count. He took part in the first crusade, fell into the hands of the Saracens, and died in captivity; he married Adela, daughter of William I., king of England. In 1102 Stephen Henry was succeeded by his son, Theobald IV. the Great, who united the countship of Troyes with his domains in 1128. In 1135, on the death of his maternal uncle, Henry I., king of England, he was called to Normandy by the barons of the duchy, but soon renounced his claims on learning that his younger brother, Stephen, had just been proclaimed king of England.

In 1152 Theobald V. the Good, second son of Theobald IV., became count; he died in 1191 in Syria, at the siege of Acre. His son Louis succeeded in 1191, took part in the fourth crusade, and after the taking of Constantinople was rewarded with the duchy of Nicaea. He was killed at the battle of Adrianople in 1205, in which year he was succeeded by his son, Theobald VI. the Young, who died childless. In 1218 the countship pa.s.sed to Margaret, eldest daughter of Theobald V., and to Walter (Gautier) of Avesnes, her third husband.

The Chatillon branch of the counts of Blois began in 1230 with Mary of Avesnes, daughter of Margaret of Blois and her husband, Hugh of Chatillon, count of St Pol. In 1241 her brother, John of Chatillon, became count of Blois, and was succeeded in 1279 by his daughter, Joan of Chatillon, who married Peter, count of Alencon, fifth son of Louis IX., king of France. In 1286 Joan sold the countship of Chartres to the king of France. Hugh of Chatillon, her first-cousin, became count of Blois in 1293, and was succeeded by his son, Guy I., in 1307. In 1342 Louis II., eldest son of Guy I., died at the battle of Crecy, and his brother, Charles of Blois, disputed the duchy of Brittany with John of Montfort. Louis III., eldest son of Louis II., became count in 1346, and was succeeded by John II., second son of Louis II., in 1372. In 1381 Guy II., brother of Louis III. and John II., succeeded in 1381, but died childless. Overwhelmed with debt, he had sold the countship of Blois to Louis I., duke of Orleans, brother of King Charles VI., who took possession of it in 1397.

In 1498 the countship of Blois was united with the crown by the accession of King Louis XII., grandson and second successor of Louis I., duke of Orleans.

See Bernier, _Histoire de Blois_ (1682); La Saussaye, _Histoire de la ville de Blois_ (1846). (A. Lo.)

BLOMEFIELD, FRANCIS (1705-1752), English topographer of the county of Norfolk, was born at Fersfield, Norfolk, on the 23rd of July 1705. On leaving Cambridge in 1727 he was ordained, becoming in 1729 rector of Hargham, Norfolk, and immediately afterwards rector of Fersfield, his father's family living. In 1733 he mooted the idea of a history of Norfolk, for which he had begun collecting material at the age of fifteen, and shortly afterwards, while collecting further information for his book, discovered some of the famous _Paston Letters_. By 1736 he was ready to put some of the results of his researches into type. At the end of 1739 the first volume of the _History of Norfolk_ was completed.

It was printed at the author's own press, bought specially for the purpose. The second volume was ready in 1745. There is little doubt that in compiling his book Blomefield had frequent recourse to the existing historical collections of Le Neve, Kirkpatrick and Tanner, his own work being to a large extent one of expansion and addition. To Le Neve in particular a large share of the credit is due. When half-way through his third volume, Blomefield, who had come up to London in connexion with a special piece of research, caught smallpox, of which he died on the 16th of January 1752. The remainder of his work was published posthumously, and the whole eleven volumes were republished in London between 1805 and 1810.

BLOMFIELD, SIR ARTHUR WILLIAM (1829-1899), English architect, son of Bishop C.J. Blomfield, was born on the 6th of March 1829, and educated at Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge. He was then articled as an architect to P.C. Hardwick, and subsequently obtained a large practice on his own account. He became president of the Architectural a.s.sociation in 1861, and a fellow (1867) and vice-president (1886) of the Royal Inst.i.tute of British Architects. In 1887 he became architect to the Bank of England, and designed the law courts branch in Fleet Street, and he was a.s.sociated with A.E. Street in the building of the law courts. In 1889 he was knighted. He died on the 30th of October 1899. He was twice married, and brought up two sons, Charles J. Blomfield and Arthur Conran Blomfield, to his own profession, of which they became distinguished representatives. Among the numerous churches which Sir Arthur Blomfield designed, his work at St Saviour's, Southwark, is a notable example of his use of revived Gothic, and he was highly regarded as a restorer.

BLOMFIELD, CHARLES JAMES (1786-1857), English divine, was born on the 29th of May 1786 at Bury St Edmunds. He was educated at the local grammar school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained the Browne medals for Latin and Greek odes, and carried off the Craven scholarship. In 1808 he graduated as third wrangler and first medallist, and in the following year was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College. The first-fruits of his scholarship was an edition of the _Prometheus_ of Aeschylus in 1810; this was followed by editions of the _Septem contra Thebas, Persae, Choephorae_, and _Agamemnon_, of Callimachus, and of the fragments of Sappho, Sophron and Alcaeus.

Blomfield, however, soon ceased to devote himself entirely to scholarship. He had been ordained in 1810, and held in quick succession the livings of Chesterford, Quarrington, Dunton, Great and Little Chesterford, and Tuddenham. In 1817 he was appointed private chaplain to Wm. Howley, bishop of London. In 1819 he was nominated to the rich living of St Botolph's, Bishopsgate, and in 1822 he became archdeacon of Colchester. Two years later he was raised to the bishopric of Chester where he carried through many much-needed reforms. In 1828 he was translated to the bishopric of London, which he held for twenty-eight years. During this period his energy and zeal did much to extend the influence of the church. He was one of the best debaters in the House of Lords, took a leading position in the action for church reform which culminated in the ecclesiastical commission, and did much for the extension of the colonial episcopate; and his genial and kindly nature made him an invaluable mediator in the controversies arising out of the tractarian movement. His health at last gave way, and in 1856 he was permitted to resign his bishopric, retaining Fulham Palace as his residence, with a pension of 6000 per annum. He died on the 5th of August 1857. His published works, exclusive of those above mentioned, consist of charges, sermons, lectures and pamphlets, and of a _Manual of Private and Family Prayers_. He was a frequent contributor to the quarterly reviews, chiefly on cla.s.sical subjects.

See _Memoirs of Charles James Blomfield, D.D., Bishop of London, with Selections from his Correspondence_, edited by his son, Alfred Blomfield (1863); G.E. Biber, _Bishop Blomfield and his Times_ (1857).

BLOMFIELD, EDWARD VALENTINE (1788-1816), English cla.s.sical scholar, brother of Bishop C.J. Blomfield, was born at Bury St Edmunds on the 14th of February 1788. Going to Caius College, Cambridge, he was thirteenth wrangler in 1811, obtained several of the cla.s.sical prizes of the university, and became a fellow and lecturer at Emmanuel College. In 1813 he travelled in Germany and made the acquaintance of some of the great scholars of Germany. On his return, he published in the _Museum Critic.u.m_ (No. ii.) an interesting paper on "The Present State of Cla.s.sical Literature in Germany." Blomfield is chiefly known by his translation of Matthiae's _Greek Grammar_ (1819), which was prepared for the press by his brother. He died on the 9th of October 1816, his early death depriving Cambridge of one who seemed destined to take a high place amongst her most brilliant cla.s.sical scholars.

See "Memoir of Edward Valentine Blomfield," by Bishop Monk, in _Museum Critic.u.m_, No. vii.

BLONDEL, DAVID (1591-1655), French Protestant clergyman, was born at Chalons-sur-Marne in 1591, and died on the 6th of April 1655. In 1650 he succeeded G.J. Vossius in the professorship of history at Amsterdam. His works were very numerous; in some of them he showed a remarkable critical faculty, as in his dissertation on Pope Joan (1647, 1657), in which he came to the conclusion, now universally accepted, that the whole story is a mere myth. Considerable Protestant indignation was excited against him on account of this book.

BLONDEL, JACQUES FRANcOIS (1705-1774), French architect, began life as an architectural engraver, but developed into an architect of considerable distinction, if of no great originality. As architect to Louis XV. from 1755 he necessarily did much in the rococo manner, although it would seem that he conformed to fashion rather than to artistic conviction. He was among the earliest founders of schools of architecture in France, and for this he was distinguished by the Academy; but he is now best remembered by his voluminous work _L'Architecture francaise_, in which he was the continuator of Marot.

The book is a precious collection of views of famous buildings, many of which have disappeared or been remodelled.

BLONDIN (1824-1897), French tight-rope walker and acrobat, was born at St Omer, France, on the 28th of February 1824. His real name was Jean Francois Gravelet. When five years old he was sent to the ecole de Gymnase at Lyons and, after six months' training as an acrobat, made his first public appearance as "The Little Wonder." His superior skill and grace as well as the originality of the settings of his acts, made him a popular favourite. He especially owed his celebrity and fortune to his idea of crossing Niagara Falls on a tight-rope, 1100 ft. long, 160 ft.

above the water. This he accomplished, first in 1859, a number of times, always with different theatric variations: blindfold, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, sitting down midway while he made and ate an omelette. In 1861 Blondin first appeared in London, at the Crystal Palace, turning somersaults on stilts on a rope stretched across the central transept, 170 ft. from the ground. In 1862 he again gave a series of performances at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere in England, and on the continent. After a period of retirement he reappeared in 1880, his final performance being given at Belfast in 1896. He died at Ealing, London, on the 19th of February 1897.

BLOOD, the circulating fluid in the veins and arteries of animals. The word itself is common to Teutonic languages; the O. Eng. is _blod_, cf.

Gothic _bloth_, Dutch _bloed_, Ger. _Blut_. It is probably ultimately connected with the root which appears in "blow," "bloom," meaning flourishing or vigorous. The Gr. word for blood, [Greek: aima], appears as a prefix _haemo-_ in many compound words. As that on which the life depends, as the supposed seat of the pa.s.sions and emotions, and as that part which a child is believed chiefly to inherit from its parents, the word "blood" is used in many figurative and transferred senses; thus "to have his blood," "to fire the blood," "cold blood," "blood-royal,"

"half" or "whole blood," &c. The expression "blue blood" is from the Spanish _sangre azul._ The n.o.bles of Castile claimed to be free from all admixture with the darker blood of Moors or Jews, a proof being supposed to lie in the blue veins that showed in their fairer skins. The common English expletive "b.l.o.o.d.y," used as an adjective or adverb, has been given many fanciful origins; it has been supposed to be a contraction of "by our Lady," or an adaptation of the oath common during the 17th century, "'sblood," a contraction of "G.o.d's blood." The exact origin of the expression is not quite clear, but it is certainly merely an application of the adjective formed from "blood." The _New English Dictionary_ suggests that it refers to the use of "blood" for a young rowdy of aristocratic birth, which was common at the end of the 17th century, and later became synonymous with "dandy," "buck," &c.; "b.l.o.o.d.y drunk" meant therefore "drunk as a blood," "drunk as a lord." The expression came into common colloquial use as a mere intensive, and was so used till the middle of the 18th century. There can be little doubt that the use of the word has been considerably affected by the idea of blood as the vital principle, and therefore something strong, vigorous, and parallel as an intensive epithet with such expressions as "thundering," "awfully" and the like.

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY

In all living organisms, except the most minute, only a minimum number of cells can come into immediate contact with the general world, whence is to be drawn the food supply for the whole organism. Hence those cells--and they are by far the most numerous--which do not lie on the food-absorbing surface, must gain their nutriment by some indirect means. Further, each living cell produces waste products whose acc.u.mulation would speedily prove injurious to the cell, hence they must be constantly removed from its immediate neighbourhood and indeed from the organism as a whole. In this instance again, only a few cells can lie on a surface whence such materials can be directly discharged to the exterior. Hence the main number of the cells of the organism must depend upon some mechanism by which the waste products can be carried away from them to that group of cells whose duty it is to modify them, or discharge them from the body. These two ends are attained by the aid of a circulating fluid, a fluid which is constantly flowing past every cell of the body. From it the cells extract the food materials they require for their sustenance, and into it they discharge the waste materials resulting from their activity. This circulating medium is the blood.

Whilst undoubtedly the two functions of this circulating fluid above given are the more prominent, there are yet others of great importance.

For instance, it is known that many tissues as a result of their activity produce certain chemical substances which are of essential importance to the life of other tissue cells. These substances--_internal secretions_ as they are termed--are carried to the second tissue by the blood stream.

Again, many instances are known in which two distant tissues communicate with one another by means of chemical messengers, bodies termed _hormones_ ([Greek: ormaein], to stir up), which are produced by one group of cells, and sent to the other group to excite them to activity.

Here, also, the path by which such messengers travel is the blood stream.

A further and most important manner in which the circulating fluid is utilized in the life of an animal is seen in the way in which it is employed in protecting the body should it be invaded by micro-organisms.

Hence it is clear that the blood is of the most vital importance to the healthy life of the body. But the fact that it is present as a circulating medium exposes the animal to a great danger, viz. that it may be lost should any vessel carrying it become ruptured. This is constantly liable to happen, but to minimize as far as possible any such loss, the blood is endowed with the peculiar property of _clotting_, i.e. of setting to a solid or stiff jelly by means of which the orifices of the torn vessels become plugged and the bleeding stayed.

The performance of these essential functions depends upon the maintenance of a continuous flow past all tissue cells, and this is attained by the circulatory mechanism, consisting of a central pump, the heart, and a system of ramifying tubes, the arteries, through which the blood is forced from the heart to every tissue (see VASCULAR SYSTEM). A second set of tubes, the veins, collects the blood and returns it to the heart. In many invertebrates the circulating fluid is actually poured into the tissue s.p.a.ces from the open terminals of the arteries. From these s.p.a.ces it is in turn drained away by the veins. Such a system is termed a _haemolymph system_ and the circulating fluid the haemolymph.

Here the essential point gained is that the fluid is brought into direct contact with the tissue cells. In all vertebrates, the ends of the arteries are united to the commencements of the veins by a plexus of extremely minute tubes, the capillaries, consequently the blood is always retained within closed tubes and never comes into contact with the tissue cells. It is while pa.s.sing through the capillaries that the blood performs its work; here the blood stream is at its slowest and is brought nearest to the tissue cell, only being separated from it by the extremely thin wall of the capillary and by an equally thin layer of fluid. Through this narrow barrier the interchanges between cell and blood take place.

The advantage gained in the vertebrate animal by retaining the blood in a closed system of tubes lies in the great diminution of resistance to the flow of blood, and the consequent great increase in rate of flow past the tissue cells. Hence any food stuffs which can travel quickly through the capillary wall to the tissue cell outside can be supplied in proportionately greater quant.i.ty within a given time, without requiring any very great increase in the concentration of that substance in the blood. Conversely, any highly diffusible substance may be withdrawn from the tissues by the blood at a similarly increased pace. These conditions are more peculiarly of importance for the supply of oxygen and the removal of carbonic acid-especially for the former, because the amount of it which can be carried by the blood is small. But as the rate at which a tissue lives, _i.e_. its activity, depends upon the rate of its chemical reactions, and as these are fundamentally oxidative, the more rapidly oxygen is carried to a tissue the more rapidly it can live, and the greater the amount of work it can perform within a given time.

The rate of supply is of much less importance in the case of the other food substances because they are far more soluble in water, so that the supply in sufficient quant.i.ty can easily be met by a relatively slow blood flow. Hence we find that the gradual evolution of the animal kingdom goes hand in hand with the gradual development of a greater oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and an increase in the rate of its flow.

In the groundwork of a tissue are a number of s.p.a.ces--the _tissue s.p.a.ces_. They are filled with fluid and intercommunicate freely, finally connecting with a number of fine tubes, the lymphatics, through which excess of fluid or any solid particles present are drained away. The contained fluid acts as an intermediary between the blood and the cell; from it, the cell takes its various food stuffs, these having in the first instance been derived from the blood, and into it the cell discharges its waste products. On the course of the lymphatics a number of typical structures, the lymphatic glands, are placed, and the lymph has to pa.s.s through these structures where any deleterious products are retained, and the fluid thus purified is drained away by further lymphatics and finally returned to the blood. Thus there is a second stream of fluid from the tissues, but one vastly slower than that of the blood. The flow is too slow for it to act as the vehicle for the removal of those waste products (carbonic acid, &c.) which must of necessity be removed quickly. These must be removed by the blood. The same is true for the main number of other waste products, which, however, being of small molecular size are readily absorbed into the blood stream.

But in addition to fluid, the tissue s.p.a.ces may at times be found to contain solid matter in the form of particles, which may represent the debris of destroyed cells, or which are, as is quite commonly the case, micro-organisms. Apparently such material cannot be removed from a tissue by absorption into the blood stream--indeed in the case of living organisms such an absorption would in many instances rapidly prove fatal, and special provision is made to prevent such an accident. These, therefore, are made to travel along the lymphatic channels, and so, before gaining access to the blood stream and thus to the body generally, have to run the gauntlet of the protective mechanism provided by the lymphatic glands, where in the major number of cases they are readily destroyed.

Hence we see that first and foremost we have to regard the blood as a food-carrier to all the cells of the body; in the second place as the vehicle carrying away most if not all the waste products; in a third direction, it is acting as a means for transmitting chemical substances manufactured in one tissue to distant cells of the body for whose nutrition or excitation they may be essential; and in addition to these important functions there is yet another whose value it is almost impossible to overestimate, for it plays the essential role in rendering the animal immune to the attacks of invading organisms. The question of immunity is discussed elsewhere, and it is sufficient merely to indicate the chief means by which the blood subserves this essential protective mechanism. Should living organisms find their way into the surface cells or within the tissue s.p.a.ces, the body fights them in a number of ways, (1) It may produce one or more chemical substances capable of neutralizing the toxic material produced by the organism. (2) It may produce chemical substances which act as poisons to the micro-organism, either paralysing it or actually killing it. Or (3) the organism may be attacked and taken up into the body of wandering cells, _e.g_. certain of the leucocytes, and then digested by them. Such cells are therefore called phagocytes ([Greek: Phagein], to eat). Thus, by its power of reacting in these ways the body has become capable of withstanding the attacks of many different varieties of micro-organisms, of both animal and vegetable origin.

_General Properties._--Blood is an opaque, viscid liquid of bright red colour possessing a distinct and characteristic odour, especially when warm. Its opacity is due to the presence of a very large number of solid particles, the blood corpuscles, having a higher refractive index than that of the liquid in which they float. The specific gravity in man averages about 1.055. The specific gravity of the liquid portion, the plasma (Gr. [Greek: plasma], something formed or moulded, [Greek: pla.s.sein], to mould), is about 1.027, whilst that of the corpuscles amounts to 1.088. To litmus it reacts as a weak alkali.

_Blood Plasma._--The plasma is a solution in water of a varied number of substances, and as a solvent it confers on the blood its power of acting as a carrier of food stuffs and waste products. One important food substance, oxygen, is, however, only partly carried in solution, being mainly combined with haemoglobin in the red corpuscles. The food stuffs carried by the plasma are proteins, carbohydrates, salts and water. The main waste products dissolved in it are ammonium carbonate, urea, urates, xanthin bases, creatin and small amounts of other nitrogenous bodies, carbonic acid as carbonates, other carbon compounds such as cholesterin, lecithin and a number of other substances. Thus, if we take mammalian blood as a type, the plasma would have the following approximate composition:--

In 1000 grms. plasma-- Water 901.51 Substances not vaporizing at 120 C.-- Fibrin 8.06 Other proteins and organic substances 81.92 Inorganic substances-- Chlorine 3.536 Sulphuric acid 0.129 Phosphoric acid 0.145 Pota.s.sium 0.314 Sodium 3.410 Calcium 0.298 Magnesium 0.218 Oxygen 0.455 ----- 8.505 ----- 98.49 ------- 1000.00

_Proteins._--The proteins of the blood plasma belong to the two cla.s.ses of the alb.u.mins and the globulins. The globulins present are named fibrinogen and serum-globulin; as its name implies, the chief physiological property of fibrinogen is that it can give rise to fibrin, the solid substance formed when blood clots. It possesses the typical properties of a globulin, i.e. it coagulates on heating (in this instance at a temperature of 56C.), and is precipitated by half saturating its solution with ammonium sulphate. It differs from other globulins in that it is less soluble. It is only present in very small quant.i.ties, 0.4%. The other globulin, serum-globulin, is not coagulated until 75C. is reached, and we now know that it is in reality a mixture of several proteins, but so far these have not been completely separated from one another and obtained in a pure form. On dialysing a solution of serum-globulin a part is precipitated, and this portion has been termed the eu-globulin fraction, the remainder being known, in contradistinction, as the pseudo-globulin. Again, on diluting a solution and adding a small amount of acetic acid a precipitate is formed which in some respects differs from the remainder of the globulin present.

Whether in these two instances we are dealing with approximately pure substances is extremely doubtful. A further important point in connexion with the chemistry of the globulins is that dextrose may be found among their decomposition products, i.e. that a part of it, or possibly the whole, possesses a glucoside character.