386 PROFESSOR ARTHUR BOETTCHER. 



I noticed a more compact protoplasm in the less numerous 

 cup-shaped corpuscles, in which it projected from the concave 

 surface (fig. 1 , e,f). In this case the nucleus was not visible. 



Besides the blood-corpuseles described, considerably smaller 

 and darker homogeneous forms, sometimes spherical, at other 

 times furnished with a central depression, were present in smaller 

 numbers [g). 



Eighteen hours later the blood, which during that time had 

 stood in a well-closed stoppered bottle at the ordinary tempera- 

 ture of the room, although it exhibited not the least smell of 

 decomposition, had become perfectly lake-coloured. Only in a 

 few small soft coagula at the bottom of the vessel could I now 

 succeed in finding red blood-corpuscles, and these presented the 

 same properties as those I have already described. 



On the whole the changes in the red blood-corpuscles appear 

 to play an important part in poisoning by corrosive sublimate. 

 On the other hand, it results from the preceding observation that 

 the finding of nucleated blood-corpuscles (so-called transition- 

 forms) in one or other part of the vascular system does not yet 

 justify conclusions with regard to the importance of the respec- 

 tive organs in the formation of red blood-corpuscles. 



The red blood-corpuscles can, as we have seen, be transformed 

 by partial decoloration into the so-called transition-stages, 

 which at present are indistinguishable from the embryonic blood- 

 corpuscles. 



II. The Red Blood-corpuscles of the Camel. 



In my first treatise on the red blood-corpuscles of the camel 

 {3Iemoires de l'Academie,.&c., -p. 13), I have shown that the 

 nucleus of these corpuscles can be demonstrated by different 

 methods. The supposition of various authors that it can at once 

 be perceived, like the nucleus in the blood-corpuscles of the 

 frog, is, however, not correct. Eollet declares that the blood- 

 corpuscles of the camel are not provided with a nucleus any 

 more than those of man and the other mammalia (Stricker^s 

 Handbuck der Gewehelehre, p. 275). I was the first who 

 succeeded in demonstrating the nucleus. But I was only able 

 to see it clearly within the homogeneous substance surrounding 

 it, after the blood-corpuscles had parted with a portion of their 

 colouring matter by the occurrence of decomposition in the blood. 

 The next step was, therefore, to ascertain by experiment whether 

 the treatment of the camel's blood- corpuscles with an alcoholic 

 solution of corrosive sublimate would produce a better result 

 than the decoloration by alcohol and acetic acid. The colouring 



yellow-coloured transparent blood-corpuscles of the .young larvae of the 

 frog. (Compare Virchow's ' Archiv, vol. xxxvi, pi. x, fig. 20.) 



