84 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



proteid ; thirdly, that it is quite impossible to either affirm or 

 deny that the platelets existed either in the living or shed blood ; 

 and lastly, that if the blood contains cells or " Blutplattchen," 

 removable by whipping with twigs, the regeneration of these 

 cells occurs with a rapidity to which there is no parallel 

 among the other cells of the body. If they are pre-existent 

 structures, no one has hitherto suggested any site for their 

 formation other than the blood-stream itself. Since they do not 

 contain haemoglobin, all the leucocytes, if estimated at 10,000 per 

 c.mm., would have to fragment, and under these circumstances 

 the cytoplasm of each one would yield thirty platelets ; further, 

 if we conceive that this actually does occur, any specimen of 

 blood would in consequence become free from white corpuscles. 

 Other inferences can be drawn from these experiments of 

 Bizzozero, and we would suggest that the blood-plasma becomes 

 deficient in proteids, and especially in nucleo-proteid, inasmuch 

 as, at the end of the experiment, the blood was found to have 

 lost its power of spontaneously clotting. The amount removed 

 by whipping did not reduce the proteid contents of the blood 

 below 6*5 per cent., for this is the limit to which the proteids of 

 the serum can fall (Roscher and E. Grawitz). It is certain that 

 the blood-plasma regains its normal composition rapidly after 

 haemorrhage, or an intravenous injection of dextrose or pro- 

 teoses, and this, possibly, is what occurred in the experiment we 

 have described. It is very probable that plasma abnormally 

 poor in proteids reacts like serum on admixture with fixing 

 fluids containing osmic acid or 14 per cent. MgS0 4 . Just as 

 serum shows no platelets, so may a plasma which is poor in 

 proteids. With the restoration of the blood-proteids, on the 

 admixture of fixing fluids, the platelets will again be present in 

 the same or slightly greater amount. Mechanical damage to 

 the blood-plasma by whipping may therefore not only produce 

 platelets, but so rob the blood of its proteids that the fluid in 

 which the corpuscles float approximates in its composition to that 

 of blood-serum. Under these circumstances the platelets cannot 

 be demonstrated in a specimen of shed blood. As restoration 

 occurs progressively, so will the number of platelets which can 

 be demonstrated in shed blood gradually augment until by the 

 fifth day the normal number will be found. Bizzozero's figures 

 actually show that such a progressive increase does occur. 



The term " Blutplattchenfrage " is well employed by German 



