276 D. D. CUNNINGHAM. 
coagulation rapidly sets in, and with the contraction of the clot 
a clear peripheral ring of serum is generally formed into which 
white corpuscles emerge in varying numbers, retaining their 
activity for various periods up to twenty-four hours. In about 
four days the rouleaux have entirely broken up, leaving the cor- 
puscles loose in the fluid. At the close of a period of a week 
the serous ring begins to become stained by the solution of the 
hemoglobin, and shortly afterwards the colour of the central 
portion of the preparation begins to lose its brilliant scarlet 
and to acquire a carbuncle red hue. ‘his change in colour 
becomes more pronounced, and as the staining of the peripheral 
vortion advances, the entire drop assumes a uniform deep ruby 
colour. With the solution of the coagulum the white corpuscles 
which have been entangled in it, as well as those in the peri- 
pheral area which have not disintegrated, come conspicuously 
into view, appearing as shining, white, oily-looking globules 
among the surrounding deep red fluid; after this no further 
change occurs, and the preparation remains seemingly unaltered 
for months. 
The phenomena in cases where a sporangium or spores have 
been introduced into the drop are very different. The following 
are the notes recorded regarding one set of experiments :—A 
drop of blood was inoculated with a couple of normal sporangia 
from a cultivation of cow dung, and sealed in a wax-cell. For 
some hours the specimen exhibited similar appearances to those 
of a pure blood specimen set at the same time for comparison ; 
clear serum being freely expressed to form a peripheral zone into 
which white corpuscles emerged, and the colour of the clot 
remaining bright scarlet. Subsequently, however, a dark zone 
appeared around each of the sporangia, indicative of local deoxi- 
dation, a phenomenon frequently observed in ordinary slide 
preparations of sporangia in blood. On the following morning, 
twenty hours after the commencement of the experiment, the 
clot was of a dirty brownish colour and the serum was deeply 
stained. It contained an abundance of active, freely crawling 
amceboid bodies which, had it not been for the altered condition 
of the fluid and the fact of the sporangial inoculation, might 
have readily been taken for persistently active white blood-cor- 
puscles, as in size, general appearance, and character of move- 
ment they were indistinguishable from such bodies. On the 
next day the clot and seram were somewhat darker coloured. 
The latter was full of active and still amceboid bodies of various 
sizes; some when spherical measuring from 12 to 15 m in 
diameter. As a rule, they showed a single well-defined nucleolar 
particle, and some contained a pair of such bodies. ‘They showed 
no signs of possessing a contractile vesicle, Some of them, in 
