THE BLOOD AND THE LYMPH. 709 



face, and a disposition to cohere, they usually do not form any large 

 aggregations, and never constitute rouleaux. 



Condition of the hlood-eorpusdes in various kinds of blood. — However 

 sensitive the blood-cells, out of the bodj', are towards various reagents, 

 they appear, within it, to be so constant, at all events as regards their 

 shape, that not only within the bounds of the physiological condition, 

 are no notable and uniform differences to be observed in them, in the 

 arterial and venous blood and the blood of the different ora;ans, but, 

 even in the most various diseases, no visible alterations are presented. 

 And yet it cannot be doubted that, as the color and chemical composi- 

 tion of the blood-cells vary, so also are their forms subject to certain 

 diversities and changes, according as the blood is more concentrated 

 or diluted, and abounds more or less with one saline constituent or ano- 

 ther, or with other substances ; but these changes of form are so incon- 

 siderable, that it cannot be wondered at, that we have not yet been in 

 a condition to recognize them with certainty. At all events, with 

 Henle, I must most expressly declare, that all these forms — the jagged 

 blood-corpuscle on the one side, and the diminutive, spherical, colored 

 or pale — are never met with in the circulatino; blood. Slight degrees 

 of flattening and distension may probably be noticed ; but in such re- 

 searches it should never be forgotten how quickly the blood-corpuscles 

 change their form, and care must be taken not to view a condition set 

 up out of the organism, as a natural one. The relations of the blood- 

 cells, as to their number, appear to vary more than their forms. As 

 respects the colored, they are more numerous in the venous than in the 

 arterial blood. In speaking of the venous blood, that of the hepatic 

 veins stands pre-eminent, containing, according to Lehmann, far more 

 blood-cells than that of the portal vein, and even exceeding in that 

 respect the somewhat rich blood of the jugular vein. The colorless 

 blood-cells, as I and Funke have found, exist in very great number in 

 the splenic blood, and indeed sometimes more in the form of uninuclear 

 cells, sometimes as multinuclear ; and also in the blood of the hepatic 

 veins, according to Lehmann, in which they are characterized by their 

 very various size {vid. § 223) ; I have noticed this, in many cases, 

 though by no means invariably, but am unable to regard it as an ex- 

 clusive character of the blood in the hepatic veins, because I have also 

 found the same multitude of colorless cells in perfectly healthy animals, 

 in the portal blood, as Lehmann has done in one case, as well as in the 

 blood of the pulmonary veins. Otherwise, however, the colorless cells 

 are more abundant in the venous, than in the arterial blood (Remak). 

 In the vena cava superior, and iliac vein of the Dog, Zimmerraann 

 noticed uninuclear cells, and, in the v. cava inferior, multinuclear ones. 



Many experiments have already been made as to the influence of 

 various reagents on the blood-globules, although the results obtained 



