244 OF THE BLOOD: 



markable extent, as has been shown by Dr. Hirt, of Zittau, 1 according to 

 whether the examination be made before or after food. Thus in the morn- 

 ing before breakfast the proportions were one colorless to 716 colored corpus- 

 cles ; half an hour after breakfast 1 : 347 ; between two and three hours after 

 breakfast 1 : 1514; ten minutes after dinner 1 : 1592; half an hour after 

 dinner 1 : 429 ; two hours and a half to four hours after dinner 1 : 1481 ; half 

 an hour after supper 1 : 544; and between two and a half to three and a half 

 hours after supper 1 : 1227. The white corpuscles are more abundant in 

 children than in adults, and there is an increase during pregnancy and in 

 certain diseased conditions of the system. In the oviparous Vertebrate the 

 proportion is higher ; thus it has been observed by Wagner 2 to be as 1 : 16 

 in the blood of a frog examined in February, and as 1 : 6 in similar blood 

 examined in August. In one Vertebrated animal, the Ampldoxus, the red 

 corpuscles are wanting altogether ; their place in the circulating blood being 

 taken by the colorless. And in the Invertebrate series generally, the cor- 

 puscles of the circulating fluid correspond rather to the colorless corpuscles 

 of the blood of Vertebrata, and to the corpuscles of Lymph and Chyle (which 

 may be regarded as the same bodies in an earlier stage of development), than 

 they do to the red corpuscles, which are peculiar to Vertebrata. 3 Thus, in 

 one of its most characteristic features, the blood of Invertebrata (and of Am- 

 phioxus) may be likened rather to the Lymph and Chyle of vertebrated 

 animals than to their blood ; and this resemblance is strengthened by the 

 fact that there is no distinction in the fonner between the absorbent and the 

 sanguiferous vessels, which in the latter respectively contain the nutritious 

 fluid in its earlier and in its later stages of development. Moreover, the 

 earliest blood-corpuscles of the embryo of even the highest vertebrata are 

 colorless; and long after the blood has acquired its characteristic hue from 

 the development of red corpuscles, the colorless corpuscles bear a very large 

 proportion to the red, so as even to equal them in number (as the author is 

 informed by Mr. Gulliver), in the blood of foatal Deer an inch and a half 

 long, and absolutely to preponderate in the blood of still smaller embryos. 



178. If the blood (of a Mammal) be exposed drop by drop to a cold of 8 

 or 9 Fahr., and then be rapidly warmed to 68 Fahr., the corpuscles will 

 be found to have lost their color, whilst the serum is deeply stained. A 

 kind of analysis of the constituents of the blood may thus be effected. To 

 the material of the corpuscles, which retain for some time their original form 

 and elasticity, though devoid of color, the term Stroma has been applied, 

 whilst the coloring matter has been named Hccmoglobin, Hrcniatoglobuliu, or 

 Hrernatocrystallin, and is characterized by its property of assuming under 

 favorable circumstances the crystalline form. The stroma appears from its 

 reactions to be chiefly composed of certain albuminous compounds, the nature 

 of which has not been clearly ascertained, lecithin and cholest&rin. M. 

 Preyer 4 has named one of these albuminous substances globiti, and regards it 

 as the purest form of albumen known, since it leaves no ash when burnt. 

 It has no fibrino-plastic property. By the action of acids (acetic acid) acid- 

 albumen, and of alkalies (potash) alkali-albuminate are formed. Syntonin 



1 Mullor's Archiv, 1856, p. 174; see also the Experiments of Marfels and Lorangc, 

 quoted in Ludwig, vol. ii, p. 38, 1801. 



- Elements of Physiology, translated by Dr. Wi'lis, p. 240. 



3 See Mr. Wharton Jones's Memoir on The Blood-Corpuscle, considered in its 

 ditl'rrent Phases of Development in the Animal Series, in the Philos. Trans., 1846; 

 nl>o Princ. of Comp. Phys., 4th edit. g| 379-382. 



4 Prcycr, Die Blut-Crystnlle, 1871, p. 107, shows that the term globulin has been 

 applied to twelve or fourteen different albuminoid compounds, sufficiently attesting 

 the difficulty chemists experience in isolating and discriminating the members of this 

 extensive class of organic compounds. 



