THE BLOOD-PLATELETS 



By G. A. BUCKMASTER, M.A., D.M. (Oxox.) 

 University College, London 



In thinking over the problems in physiology of which so many 

 await solution, we seem almost compelled to assume that the 

 amount of positive, unquestionable knowledge that exists on 

 any given subject stands in inverse ratio to the quantity of 

 contentious literature devoted to it. In this paper it is our 

 intention to present the views of those who have made the 

 blood-platelets a subject of particular study, and, by considering 

 the exact way in which the observations have been carried out, 

 to examine whether all the statements, together with the infer- 

 ences which various observers of undoubted ability have drawn 

 from the histological appearances of shed human blood, are 

 beyond criticism. Since a purely literary study of any scientific 

 question is of doubtful value, we may take this opportunity of 

 stating that the majority of the observations and experiments 

 about to be described have been repeated and extended by us 

 during the past three years, and it will be sufficient for the 

 present to review some of the work which has been done on 

 the nature and origin of the blood-platelets, and to omit any 

 consideration of the part which these bodies play in the process 

 of coagulation of the blood. 



According to E. Schwalbe, 1 the platelets were originally 

 discovered in 1846 by Fr. Arnold. A detailed description of 

 these bodies as they appeared in human blood was first given 

 in 1865 by Max Schultze, who spoke of them as " Kornchenbild- 

 ungen," noticed that they resisted the action of weak acids, were 

 destroyed by weak alkalis, and occurred in exceptionally large 

 numbers in the blood of an anaemic individual. Between these 

 observations and those made in 1878 and 1882 by Hayem and 

 Bizzozero, which formed the starting-point for all the various 

 controversial papers that have appeared up to the present time, 



1 Untersuchungen zur Blutgerinnung Braunschweig, 1901. 



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