SHAPE OF MAMMALIAN RED BLOOD CORPUSCLE 441 



he believed existed also .in limited numbers in normal blood. 

 Quincke ('77) and Grawitz ('99) saw cup shapes among the 

 poikilocytosed corpuscles of severe anemias; Grawitz ('02) 

 further recorded having observed a tendency toward crenation 

 in fever patients. 



At about this time Ranvier ('75) demonstrated that increased 

 temperature produced cups or spheres according to the degree 

 of elevation. This heating effect has been emphasized by v. 

 Ebner ('02), Fuchs ('03), Albrecht ('04), and Zoth (cited by 

 Lohner '10). Here might be mentioned the probably erroneous 

 contention of Hamburger ('02) that a correlation exists between 

 the oxygen-carbon dioxide content of the blood and the shape 

 of the corpuscles; in blood rich in oxygen (carotid artery) discs 

 were described, whereas the corpuscles of blood having a high 

 carbon dioxide content (jugular vein) were believed to be cup- 

 shaped. 



During the two hundred years in which the foregoing data as 

 to the existence of cups were being collected, observations of 

 another sort were recorded. 



de Senac (1749) referred to red corpuscles as having a lentic- 

 ular shape, ''plus approchantes d'une sphere appatie au veri- 

 tablement lenticulaires." 



The corpuscles were studied with considerable care by Hewson 

 (1777) who says (p. 214) : ''These particles of the blood, improp- 

 erly called globules, are in reality flat bodies . . . ." He 

 diluted the blood of animals with blood serum^ and records his 

 observations (p. 215) : " . . . . these particles of blood 

 were as flat as a guinea." 



J. Miiller ('32) stated that the corpuscles in side view resemble 

 coins; Schultz ('36), Prevost and Dumas ('21) and other con- 

 temporaneous writers made essentially the same comparison. 



In 1838 Wagner decided in favor of the normality of the 

 biconcave disc (cf. p. 440). Henle ('41), the atlases of Funke ('53) 

 and Ecker ('51-'59), and many more recent works figure the 

 familiar biconcave shape. 



2 Although Muys (1751) mentioned the difference between the action of serum 

 and water, it was not until 1813 that Young proved water^not actually to dis- 

 solve the corpuscles. 



