34 NUMBER OF RED CORPUSCLES. [BOOK i. 



large quantity of some indifferent fluid, e.g. a 5 p.c. solution of sodium 

 sulphate, and then actually counting the corpuscles in a known minimal 

 bulk of the mixture. 



This perhaps may be most conveniently done by the method gener- 

 ally known as that of Gowers (Hsemacytometer) improved by Malassez. 

 A glass slide, in a metal frame, is ruled into minute rectangles, e.g. 

 mm. by mm., so as to give a convenient area of ^th of a square mm. 

 Three small screws in the frame permit a coverslip to be brought to a 

 fixed distance, e.g. mm., from the surface of the slide. The blood 

 having been diluted, e.g. to 100 times its volume, a small quantity of 

 the diluted (and thoroughly mixed) blood, sufficient to occupy fully 

 the space between the coverslip and the glass slide when the former is 

 brought to its proper position, is placed on the slide, and the coverslip 

 brought down. The volume of diluted blood now lying over each of 

 the rectangles will be T &<jth (^x^) of a cubic mm. ; and if, when the 

 corpuscles have subsided, the number of corpuscles lying within a 

 rectangle be counted, the result will give the number of corpuscles 

 previously distributed througli T ^th of a cubic mm. of the diluted 

 blood. This multiplied by 100 will give the number of corpuscles in 

 1 cubic mm. of the diluted blood, and again multiplied by 100 the 

 number in 1 cubic mm. of the entire blood. It is advisable to count 

 the number of corpuscles in several of the rectangles, and to take the 

 average. For the convenience of counting, each rectangle is subdi- 

 vided into a number of very small squares, e.g. into 20, each with a 

 side of s*ffth mm., and so an area of 3 ^th of a square mm. 



Since the actual number of red corpuscles in a specimen of 

 blood (which may be taken as a sample of the whole blood) is 

 sometimes more, sometimes less, it is obvious that either red 

 corpuscles may be temporarily withdrawn from and returned to 

 the general blood current, or that certain red corpuscles are after 

 a while made away with, and that new ones take their place. 

 We have no satisfactory evidence of the former being the case in 

 normal conditions, whereas we have evidence that old corpuscles 

 do die and that new ones are born. 



26. The red corpuscles, we have already said, are continually 

 engaged in carrying oxygen, by means of their haemoglobin, from 

 the lungs to the tissues ; they load themselves with oxygen at the 

 lungs and unload at the tissues. It is extremely unlikely that 

 this act should be repeated indefinitely without leading to changes 

 which may be familiarly described as wear and tear, and which 

 would ultimately lead to the death of the corpuscles. 



We shall have to state later on that the liver discharges into 

 the alimentary canal, as a constituent of bile, a considerable 

 quantity of a pigment known as bilirubin, and that this substance 

 has remarkable relations with, and indeed may be regarded as a 

 derivative of hcematin, which as we have seen ( 24) is a product 

 of the decomposition of haemoglobin. It appears probable in fact 

 that the bilirubin of bile (and this as we shall see is the chief 

 biliary pigment and the source of the other biliary pigments) is 



