170 MEMORANDA. 



Having lately observed (15th June, 1854) that Rudolph 

 Vircliow had published in Virchow's Archiv, Bd VI., H. 1, 

 page 135 (Sept. 4, 1853), an account of his discovery of a sub- 

 stance presenting the chemical reaction of cellulose found in 

 the brain and spinal cord of man, I mentitmed the fact to my 

 patient, told him that it was possible that the discovery which 

 I had made of starch in his blood might be a reality, and 

 consequently I thought it would be well to make another ob- 

 servation of the matters contained in his blood. Upon placing 

 a drop of the patient's blood under the microscope it exhibited 

 the same corpuscles, and I now resolved to test them with 

 iodine ; accordingly I made a watery solution of iodine, and 

 applied it to the drop of blood instead of tlie water previously 

 employed, and found that every one of the bodies I fancied 

 to be starch-corpuscles became blue — some were of a light 

 purplish-blue tint, while others became opaque, and of a per- 

 fectly blue colour. To satisfy myself as to the precise 

 character of these bodies, I now took some flour and mixed 

 it with the weak watery solution of iodine, and precisely 

 similar results were produced, therefore I consider that I am 

 warranted in believing that the bodies I observed under the 

 microscope, in the blood of the patient afflicted with epilepsy, 

 were corpuscles of starch ; and that under ordinary circum- 

 stances, while floating in blood of the usual consistency, these 

 bodies are scarcely more than granules, and continue as such 

 so long as they remain in the circulating system ; but when 

 they have been removed from the blood, or submitted to a less 

 dense fluid, that they then rapidly take up fluid, and are 

 readily developed into full-sized starch-corpuscles, and may 

 be shown as such in the field of the microscope. 



While adverting to this singular fact, I will not presume 

 myself to offer any reasons as to the physiological or patho- 

 logical value of the conclusions that may be drawn from the 

 circumstance, save that it seems to confirm the opinion 

 advanced by Virchow, when he states that " In the brain of 

 the child I have as yet sought for it (the cellulose) in vain, so 

 that like the brain-sand it appears to arise in a later stage of 

 development, and probably may have a certain pathological 

 import." Is not this evidenced by the starch-corpuscles 

 occurring in the blood of a patient subject to epileptic 

 attacks? It is not impossible that the starch corpuscles 

 found in the brain, and other abnormal structures of the body, 

 may have been derived from the blood, and have been dejw- 

 sited in tlie diseased structures, as one of the products of 

 inflammatory action ; at that period they were scarcely more 

 than nuclei, but after they had been removed from the circu- 



