330 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ed, M. Meneville continues, "Examined by means of the micro- 

 scope, immediately after its issue from the body, the blood of healthy 

 silk-worms is seen to consist of an albuminous transparent liquid, with- 

 out color in those worms which produce the white silk, and of a golden 

 yellow in those which produce the yellow silk. In this liquid there 

 is an innumerable quantity of almost spherical globules, whose size is 

 very small, the diameter of the largest not exceeding the hundredth of 

 a millimetre. These globules, which appear to possess life, are devel- 

 oped and reproduced continually during the life of the animal, and at 

 different periods they exhibit the following modifications: 1. Those 

 which appear newly formed are smaller, and their centre exhibits only 

 a single point which is somewhat less transparent than the rest. 2. A 

 little later, the globule has increased, and a nucleus is seen at the cen- 

 tre, consisting of several perfectly equal granules, which seem to give 

 to this nucleus an expanding and contracting motion. 3. At another 

 period in the life of the globules, these granules separate, and join the 

 circumference. 4. Finally, these same granules have a tendency to 

 come out from the globule by breaking its envelop, and this they soon 

 do, forming, as soon as they come forth, other globules, similar to the 

 parent ones, and becoming covered with a transparent membrane, 

 whose formation is probably aided by the contact with the albuminous 

 liquid which is their nourishment. 



" The above appearances are invariably presented by healthy animals, 

 but in diseased ones the case is very different. If blood is taken from 

 silk-worms weakened by any of the diseases except the muscardine, 

 it is found that the globules in the blood decrease in number as the 

 animal is more or less diseased. Then the albumen is filled with lit- 

 tle animated corpuscles, which are more numerous in proportion as 

 the healthy globules are less so. These animated corpuscles are all 

 of exactly the same size, one four-hundredth of a millimetre, oval and 

 kidney-shaped, and they have no appearance of possessing vibrating 

 cilia or other external locomotive organs. They move, however, very 

 rapidly, and are evidently the same as those seen in the healthy glob- 

 ules, for they have often been detected coming forth from them. It 

 seems to me to be also evident that these granules are the rudiments 

 of new globules of blood, when they are produced in the blood of a 

 healthy silk-worm, but that they want some essential qualities, when 

 they are formed in a diseased animal, so that their development is ar- 

 rested. 



"I propose to call these granules hccmatozoides. In silk-worms 

 which are dying of muscardine, whether they have received the seeds 

 of the disease naturally or have been artificially infected, the phenom- 

 ena occur very differently. A long time before the death of the worm, 

 and even before its disease is shown by any external signs, there is 

 found in their blood some hccmatozuides, which increase in number from 

 hour to hour, and with which are mingled some little navicular bodies, 

 at first very short, and which are soon seen to become the rudiments of 

 the Botrytis muscardinique. At this period of the disease I have been 

 able to establish the moment in which many of the animated corpus- 

 cles are transformed into plants. 



