276 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



EFFECTS OF QUININE ON WHITE BLOOD COEPUSCLES. 



Additional experiments are adduced by Kerner to show 

 that quinine puts a stop to the motion of the white blood 

 corpuscles, and renders them round and darkly granulated. 

 He also shows that this action is not due, as Strieker and 

 others have supposed, to the presence of free acid, as perfect- 

 ly neutral hydrochloride or carbonate of quinine, in the pro- 

 portion of one part in 4000 of fluid, produces this effect when 

 dissolved either in water or serum. Solutions of salicine, caf- 

 feine, atropine, and sodium-arsenite, in like concentration, had 

 either no effect at all or very little. 21 A, March, 1872, 254. 



CELLULOSE IN ANIMAL TISSUES. 



The announcement of the occurrence of cellulose in the an- 

 imal kingdom, made by Schmidt in 1845, w T as at first received 

 with much incredulity ; the possible existence of such a non- 

 nitrogenous substance in an animal being a startling proposi- 

 tion. Recently Shafer has renewed the examination of cer- 

 tain animals, such as Pyrosoma, several satyas, and Phallusia 

 mammiUaris, and by a carefully conducted chemical process 

 he has succeeded in isolating a substance which, by all tests, 

 exhibits an absolute identity as a chemical body with cellu- 

 lose of plants. The proofs of this, as given, are as follows : 

 first, the quantitative composition ; second, the assumption 

 of a violet-blue color on the addition of iodine, after previous 

 action with sulphuric acid ; third, the solubility in ammoni- 

 acal oxide of copper, and the precipitation from this solution 

 by acids; fourth, the alteration of this cellulose precipitated 

 from ammoniacal oxide of copper, not only in its physical, but 

 also in its chemical condition, and with the retention of its 

 behavior to iodine ; fifth, the transformation into fermentable 

 sugar by long action of sulphuric acid ; sixth, the transforma- 

 tion'into a nitrous body by the action of fuming nitric acid, 

 which product is partly identical with gun-cotton and partly 

 with collodion. 19 (7, March 23, 1872, 94. 



VARIATION IN THE SIZE OF BLOOD COEPUSCLES. 



Dr.Manassein, of St. Petersburg, has ascertained that every 

 influence which occasions a great alteration in any of the 

 functions of the body alters materially the character of the 



