406 



SoDO queste, a mio credere, le ragioni che mi autorizzerebbero a 

 ritenere esatta la denominazione di deferente a doppio lume, e non 

 giä di deferente a diverticolo anomalo nella sezione inguinale. 



Resta pero in ogni modo indiscussa la novita del caso, in quanto 

 che (ad onta delle piu rigorose ricerche eseguite insieme col Prof. 

 Vastarini-Cresi, al quale come al mio maestro D'Antona rendo le 

 piu vive grazie) non sono riuscito a trovarne uno eguale nella antica 

 e moderna bibliografia. 



Nachdruck verboten. 



The Shape of the red Blood Corpuscles. 



By H. E. Jordan, A. M., Ph. D. 

 (From the Anatomical Laboratory, University of Virginia.) 



In 1902 Weidenreich ^), after an exhaustive study of mammalian 

 bloods, including those of most of the domestic animals and the 

 monkey and the porcupine, described the normal red blood corpuscles 

 as "bell-shaped". The biconcave discs abundantly seen in freshly drawn 

 blood he regarded -as abnormal structures due to shrinkage consequent 

 upon the cooling and increasing concentration of the blood plasma. 

 "Bell-shaped" corpuscles are reported by him in sections, fresh prepar- 

 ations, and in the mesentery of the living rabbit. In 1904 Lewis 2), 

 in an article in which he gave an excellent review of the literature 

 touching the shape of the red blood corpuscles prior to Weidenreich's 

 observations, reported confirmatory results obtained from a repetition 

 of the latter experiments. Study of sectioned tissue of adult mam- 

 mals, including the opossum, of fresh blood, and of the circulating 

 blood in the omentum of the guinea-pig led Lewis to conclude that 

 the normal corpuscle is "cup-shaped". The term "saucer-shaped" has 

 been employed to designate less deed "cup-shaped" forms. 



The writer has discovered considerable scepticism respecting the 

 position that the red blood corpuscles are normally "cup-shaped". 

 Moreover, judging from the caution with which the discovery is treated 

 in various recent text -books of Clinical Diagnosis, Physiology and 



1) Fr. Weidenreich, Studien über das Blut. 1. Form und Bau 

 der roten Blutkörperchen, Arch. f. mik. Anat, Bd. 61, 1902, p. 459. 



2) F. T. Lewis, The shape of mammalian red blood corpuscles. 

 Journ. of med. Research, Vol. 10: 4, 1904, p. 513. 



