372 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Dec, 



blood platelets. I have drawn attention to the fact in 

 the first half of my paper that Hayem is not the dis- 

 coverer of the haematoblasts, and now I will also add 

 that Hayem was in error in confounding the haemato- 

 blasts with blood platelets. 



Osier's views are marred by the acceptance of Hayem's 

 error. There can be no doubt that Lostorfer in 1871 first 

 saw the platelets although he misinterpreted their sig- 

 nificance. We may call Max Schultze, the discoverer of 

 the granular masses in the blood, though this excellent 

 observer had in 1860 no idea of the life and struc- 

 ture of the red blood corpuscles which he considered as 

 merely chemical constituents of the blood. 



Julio Bizzozero "(Archiv. Ital. de Biol., 1882)" states 

 that the platelets which he terms plaques serve as cen- 

 ters of coagulution of the fibrin and play an important 

 role in the formation of the white or fibrous clot of the 

 thrombus obliterating the calibre of the injured blood 

 vessel, forming masses that constitute the chief element 

 in the white or fibrinous thrombus. Recent studies seem 

 to be opposed to this view. 



Many observations have proved that both Haemato- 

 blasts and blood platelets circulate in the vascular sys- 

 tem of living animals. 



If we consider the fact that healthy persons have, in 

 their red blood corpuscles a compact reticulum of living 

 matter, whose meshes are filled with haemoglobin, while 

 debilitated persons, on the contrary have a delicate re- 

 ticulum in their red blood corpuscles and comparatively 

 little haemaglobin which is probably also of less consis- 

 tance than in vigorous persons, we are at once in the 

 position to understand the origin and the significance of 

 the platelets. The living matter during the life of the 

 organism is at no time in perfect rest. Perfect rest 

 means death. Contractions of the living matter in the 

 red blood corpuscles of a healthy person will have but 



