VARIETIES OF LEUCOCYTES. 417 



of small hyaline leucocytes in the blood is usually very 

 greatly exceeded. 



II. The Large Hyaline Cell. 



A spheroidal cell with a rounded, often reniform, 

 nucleus. The nuclear network consists of very fine 

 chromatin threads enclosing relatively wide meshes ; as a 

 whole, therefore, the nucleus does not usually take on any 

 great depth of stain. So long as the cell remains alive the 

 cell-body is devoid of visible granularity, and is apparently 

 homogeneous, but when the cell is dead the cell-body can 

 be distinctly tinted by methylene blue and similar colouring 

 matters. Examination under high magnifying powers then 

 resolves what under lower appears to be a sheet of evenly 

 stained substance into a cloud of minute and feebly stained 

 particles embedded in a matrix completely unstained (2). 

 These tiny amorphous and shrunken particles are all that 

 are demonstrable in the way of cell contents, and are the 

 homologues of the obvious granules in granulate cells, e.g., 

 secreting cells, many leucocytes, etc. 



The large hyaline leucocyte is usually not amoeboid ; 

 under many circumstances it proves itself to be neverthe- 

 less a capable phagocyte ; that is to say, it can take up 

 particles from its environment and enclose them within its 

 cell-substance. Whether a cell in order to ingest particles 

 must be amoeboid is so far as I know undetermined, but it 

 is conceivable that it need not be. Certainly a cell to 

 be free and "wandering" need not be amoeboid; in its 

 ''wandering" it may be the passive subject of outside 

 forces acting upon it. 



The large hyaline cell occurs in blood, in lymph, and in 

 the tissue-spaces ; it is most common in the latter. Nor- 

 mally it forms less than 10 per cent, of all leucocytes in 

 the blood. When its numbers in the blood are large 

 the blood is usually of low specific gravity, of low haemo- 

 globin value, and poor in chromocytes ; thus it is numerous 

 in the anaemia ensuing upon typhoid fever (4) ; it is also 

 numerous in the anaemia of pregnancy. In the latter 

 condition, though hardly in the former, there is reason to 



