BED COKPTJSCLES. 117 



hemorrhages, new corpuscles are gradually developed, until 

 their quantity reaches the normal standard. Thus in the 

 anemia which follows considerable loss of blood, the color 

 gradually returns with the development of the corpuscles. 



Chemical Characters. In all chemical analyses of the 

 blood-corpuscles, the proportions of dried constituents only 

 are given. As we have seen in treating of organic-nitrogen- 

 ized elements, such estimates give no idea of the actual pro- 

 portions of the organic constituents of fluids or tissues. We 

 must consider the corpuscles as organized bodies, consisting 

 almost entirely of globuline, with which are combined a 

 small quantity of hematine, or coloring matter, fat, and cer- 

 tain inorganic salts, from which it cannot be separated with- 

 out decomposition. The chemical characters of globuline 

 have already been considered. 1 The iron which the blood 

 contains is regarded as existing in the hematine. Its pres- 

 ence can readily be demonstrated in a single drop of blood 

 by adding nitric acid and evaporating, which reduces it to 

 the condition of a per-oxide, when a red color is produced on 

 the addition of the sulpho-cyanide of potassium. The iron 

 is molecularly united with the other constituents, probably 

 as iron, and not as an oxide, as has been supposed by some. 3 

 The fat which is found in the corpuscles forms an exception 

 to the general law regulating the condition of this principle 

 in the tissues, namely, that it is always uncombined with 



1 Vide page 90. 



2 Crystals have long been observed in blood under certain circumstances. 

 Sir Ever-hard Home first observed them in the clots of aneurismal sacs in 1830. 

 Since then they have been described by Scherer, Virchow, and others, and by 

 many are supposed to be pure hematine, or the normal coloring matter of the red 

 corpuscles. Robin and Verdeil, who have studied them very closely, do not con- 

 sider these crystals as constituting a proximate principle, but as formed by an 

 alteration of the hematine, consisting in the substitution of water for the iron. 

 By careful analysis, these observers have failed to detect any iron entering into 

 their composition. They are treated of in their " Chimie Anatomiqiie" under 

 Hcematoidine. Op. dt., tome iii., pp. 376 and 430, and Nysterfs Dictionary, 

 1858. Hcematoidine. 



