RED CORPUSCLE CONTENT OF THE CIRCULATING RLOOD 



567 



ratio determined by the hematocrit reading of blood samples drawn 

 from the body. 



Some dye is lost by the plasma during the experiment. However, this 

 loss is taken into account by extrapolating the dilution values obtained 

 at different times to zero time. These considerations make it improljable 

 that the above mentioned discrepancy is due to an overestimation of the 

 plasma content by the dye method and suggest the alternative denoted 

 by {b) to explain the discrepancy. 



Table 4. — Corpuscle Content or 



THE Same Subject Determined at 



Different Dates 



Already some years ago, it was suggested by Smith, Arnold and 

 Whipple (1921) that the hematocrit reading does not give the true 

 corpuscle-plasma ratio of the blood in the whole body. They found the 

 red corpuscle volume determined by the CO method and the Welkcr 

 method to be approximately 25 per cent lower than the red corpuscle 



