STRUCTURAL RELATIONS OP UED BLOOD-CORPUSCLES. 3S9 



because the experiments with the alcoholic solution of corrosive 

 sublimate confirms in a most gratifying manner the results which 

 were obtained by an entirely different method. I refer the 

 reader at once to the drawings in tigs. 9, 10, and 11. The first 

 two figures are taken from uncoloured preparations, after tlie 

 blood-corpuscles had been purified from corrosive sublimate by 

 washing, first with alcohol and then with water; fig. 11 is after 

 staining with carmine. 



The peculiarity of the drawings is sufficient to convince any 

 one that we have not here to do with accidental forms which 

 have been artiticially produced by the method of treatmeiit, but 

 with details of organisation which have been obtained by a 

 sudden solidification of the substance of the corpuscles. In the 

 momentary action which causes the temporary condition to re- 

 main a permanent one lies, independently of the decoloration 

 which takes place, a great advantage, which the concentrated 

 solution of corrosive sublimate possesses over all other reagents 

 which have as yet been employed in the study of the red blood- 

 corpuscles. What strikes one as peculiar in the treatment of 

 frog^s blood-corpuscles by corrosive sublimate is the behaviour 

 of the protoplasm. The hoinogeneons cortical layer (haemoglobin) 

 presents dift'erences only in regard to the quantity which belongs 

 to individual blood-corpuscles. The outline remains even, and 

 the shape of the blood-corpuscles is, as a rule, well preserved if 

 the blood be allowed to drop directly from the blood-vessels into 

 a solution of corrosive sublimate kept in motion by stirring 

 (fig. II). Alore irregular forms are seen when defibrinated 

 blood is treated in a similar maimer (fig. 9). The homogeneous 

 cortex is coloured pale red by carmine and eosine, the proto- 

 plasm at the same time becoming much darker. The latter then 

 appears of such varied form that I can only give a general idea 

 of its shape, of which the chief types are illustrated in the accom- 

 panying drawings. 



The protoplasm appears sometimes collected uniformly round 

 the nucleus (fig. 11, h), at other times it is accumulated more 

 to one side of it (fig. 9, a and d, fig. 11, a). It is either pro- 

 vided with only a few processes (fig. 9, b) or is arranged round 

 the nucleus in the shape of an elegant star, whose points extend 

 to the margin of the corpuscle (fig. 10, b), or else it forms round 

 the nucleus a peculiar lobed figure (fig. ll,y). Very often it 

 appears beset on one or all sides with fine hair-like processes 

 (tig. 9, c, and d, fig. 10, d, fig. 11 a,b, d). Then, again, it may 

 represent a sort of network, which either appears distinctly sepa- 

 rated from the less darkly coloured cortical layer and more con- 

 tracted, or else it throws out into the cortex innumerable very 

 fine radiating filaments, so that its processes approach the extreme 



