The Microscope. 169 



6. The addition of cbloroform, alcohol and ether is success- 

 fully employed to furnish crystals. (A. Schmidt, Kunde.) These physi- 

 cists mixed fresh dog's blood with one-half to two-thirds of alcohol, and 

 left the mixture to itself. After a time it abounded in crystals. 

 Ether acts very much like it. Dog's blood is defibrinated, shaken 

 with ether which is added drop by drop ; left for twenty- four hours, 

 every drop will, under the microscope, reveal blood crystals. 



7. We may obtain crystals by exhausting the blood of its 

 oxygen, either mechanically or chemically. Even the blood of man 

 furnishes microscopical crystals. The blood of suffocated persons, 

 whether by strangulation, or those that perish in mines from 

 fire-damp, or accumulated carbonic acid, or carbonic oxide gases, 

 probably also the blood of persons perishing from the various 

 anaesthetics, will yield a I'ich harvest. In case of mechanical 

 obstruction to the admission of oxygen, and consequent suffocation, 

 there are some points not yet fully cleared up. The blood of such 

 persons, when shaken up with oxygen, will show the two bands of 

 oxyhaemato-crystalline — a sufficient proof that unless a chemolysis 

 of the blood has taken place the haemoglobin, although crystallized, 

 would yet behave, under the prismatic test, in the same manner as 

 blood does. 



8. The briefest way to obtain crystals from all bloods, is the 

 following : Take four cubic centimeter of defibrinated blood, 

 mix with equal parts of water, or until the solution has become 

 clear. Very often a drop of the mixture placed upon a slide, 

 covered with a thin cover, on evaporation will yield crystals. The 

 addition of a minim of alcohol or ether, and exposure to evapora- 

 tion at a low temperature, will seldom fail to yield abundant 

 crystals. 



The appearance of blood crystals in the living animal organism 

 must always be looked upon as a pathological condition, especially 

 those that are the result of disassociation or chymolysis. There is 

 only a solitary exception to this rule, to-wit : in the rainworm does 

 this crystallizable albuminoid appear in a solution by itself, and the 

 crystals form by simple evaporation of its vital fluid. When, from 

 any cause whatever, the blood mass loses its alkalinity and assvimes 

 an acid reaction, the decomposition of haemoglobin is thereby 

 greatly favored, the normal combination of haemoglobin and its 

 alkaline basis is broken up, leaving this substance free and in a 

 favorable condition to assume its nattiral crystalline form. Gout 

 and rheumatism favor this chymolitical process, and the blood of 



