INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1875. cxli 



important in medico-legal inquiries, since by it alone, as Dr. 

 Joseph G. Richardson states (and as we have already no- 

 ticed), he has correctly distinguished dried stains of human 

 blood from those of the ox and sheep. 



In the September number of the Monthly Microscopical 

 Journal is a paper by Dr. Osier, " On the Organisms in the 

 Liquor Sanguinis ;" it was read at a meeting of the Koyal 

 Society, and has elicited considerable notice. He was not 

 able to trace any organic continuity with any other recog- 

 nized animal or vegetable form, or to show that they possessed 

 power of reproduction, or were at all related to Bacteria. 



Dr. Joseph G. Richardson, in a paper presented to the 

 Royal Microscopical Society, and published in the January 

 number of the Journal, makes the strong statement that the 

 " pigment-cells," or " scales," described by Frerichs, of Ber- 

 lin, as occurring in blood, and the " pigmentary particles," 

 or celloids, figured by Dr. Roberts, of Manchester, England, 

 in his treatise on " Urinary and Venal Diseases," are simply 

 and solely accumulations of dirt, especially the remains of 

 blood corpuscles, in the little excavations on slides in ordi- 

 nary use ! This is a strong statement, and worthy of seri- 

 ous consideration; but Dr. Richardson is so confident of the 

 truth of his assertion that he challenges any devout believer 

 in pigment-flakes to bring him an honest specimen of blood 

 or urine from any ordinary case of disease, in which can be 

 demonstrated either pigment - flakes, pigmentary particles, 

 or pigment-scales. 



M. Laptschinsky, of St. Petersburg, contributes a paper to 

 the Centralblatt on the microscopic changes undergone by 

 the blood in various diseases. Where febrile symptoms are 

 present, the changes consist in the blood-corpuscles not run- 

 ning into regularly formed rouleaux, but in accumulating in 

 heaps or clumps, while the individual coqDiiscles frequently 

 appear swollen and cloudy. In the interspaces of the clumps 

 of red corpuscles, great numbers of white corpuscles may be 

 seen. Careful enumeration of the relative numbers of white 

 and red corpuscles, the former showing unusually active 

 and extensive amoeboid movements, satisfied him that in 

 febrile diseases, and in B right's disease, the conversion or 

 development of white corpuscles into red is either material- 

 ly retarded or entirely arrested. 



