Scientific Intelligence, — Zoology. 197 



January 14, 1841. — A paper was read, entitled, "On the Cor- 

 puscles of the Blood." Part II. By Martin Barry, M.D., F.R.SS. 

 L. & E. 



The observations recorded in this memoir are founded on an examina- 

 tion of the blood in every class of vertebrated animals, in some of the 

 invertebrata, and in the embryo of mammalia and birds. The nucleus 

 of the blood-corpuscle, usually considered as a single object, is here 

 represented as composed, in some instances, of two, three, or even 

 many parts ; these parts having a constant and determinate form. In 

 the substance surrounding the nucleus, the author has frequently been 

 able to discern, not merely ^^red colouring matter," but cell-like 

 objects ; and he points out an orifice as existing at certain periods in 

 the delicate membrane by which this substi'nee is surrounded. In a 

 former menjoir he had differed no less from previous observers regard- 

 ing " cells." He had shewn, for instance, that the nucleus of the cell 

 instead of being *' cast off as useless and absorbed," is a centre for the 

 origin, not only of the transitory contents of its own cell, but also of 

 the two or three principal and last-formed cells, destined to succeed 

 that cell ; and that a separation of the nucleus into two or three parts, 

 is not, as Dr Henle had supposed in the case of the Pus and Mucus- 

 globule (the only instances in which the separation in question had 

 been observed), the effect of acetic acid used in the examination, — but 

 that such separation is natural, apparently common to nuclei in gene- 

 ral, and forniii]g part of the process by which cells are reproduced. 

 The author had farther shewn the so-called nucleolus to be not a dis- 

 tinct object existing before the nucleus, but merely one of a series of 

 appearances arising in succession, the one within the other, at a certain 

 part of the nucleus, and continuing to arise even after the formation 

 of the cell. These views he now confirms ; and in the present paper 

 shews that they admit of being extended to the corpuscles of the blood. 



He then compares appearances observed in the latter with those 

 he had traced in the ovum. These relate to the number of parts of 

 which the nucleus is at different periods composed, — tlie nature of the 

 nucleolus, — the communication between the nucleolus and the exterior 

 of the cell, — the formation of the contents of the cell out of the nucleus, 

 — the final division of the nucleus into the foundations of a limited 

 number of young cells, destined to succeed the parent cell, — and tlie 

 escape of the young cells for this purpose. It follows from these inves- 

 tigations, that the corpuscles of the blood are generated by a process 

 essentially the same as that giving origin to those cells which are the 

 immediate successors of the germinal vesicle, or original parent cell ; it 

 being also by a continuation of the same process that the corpuscle <X 



