187 



float about in, and disturb the transparency of the fluid : moreover, 

 they have an extremely vivid movement. 



" At the expiration of half an hour, many of the tails or filaments 

 are seen assuming the form of a necklace of beads ; and those also, 

 separating from the corpuscles, float about with a singular indepen- 

 dent movement in the fluid." 



When blood is similarly mingled with a fluid consisting of two 

 parts of sherry wine and one part of a solution made with a grain 

 and a half of common salt and a grain of bicarbonate of soda to half 

 a fluid ounce of water, the transparency of the fluid part of the blood 

 is not altered, " but the corpuscles are changed in appearance, and 

 the tails or filaments which are now seen issuing from them are gene- 

 rally thicker and much more conspicuous than when the wine alone 

 is used. The molecules which separate from the corpuscles are 

 larger, and the tails which break away from the corpuscles upon any 

 slight motion of the fluid, present various dumb-bell, necklace-like, 

 serpentine, globular, and other shapes." 



Under particular but accidentally produced conditions of the 

 mingled fluids, the author has " repeatedly seen the tails suddenly 

 retract, not into the interior of the corpuscle, but into a globular 



ball at its side Sometimes the tail shortens to only half its 



length, becoming in a corresponding degree thicker." The tail in 

 thus shortening may become bulged in the middle of its length, ex- 

 hibiting at that part a globular or discoid enlargement. This glo- 

 bule or disc may then burst, and in such case the blood-corpuscle 

 finally exhibits only a small round particle remaining at the point 

 of its circumference from which the tail had proceeded. 



After describing in detail various other appearances which he 

 noted in his experiments, and which, as well as those above men- 

 tioned, are delineated in several drawings which illustrate the paper, 

 the author thus states his views as to the nature of the phenomena 

 observed : 



" In these experiments, a mixture of a saline solution and sherry 

 wine, or the wine alone, is added to a drop of fresh blood. The ad- 

 dition must change the properties of the fluid in which the corpuscles 

 naturally swim. The change in the fluid produces changes in the 

 corpuscles, shown by their altered appearance, their indisposition any 

 longer to adhere in rolls, and the various markings seen within them. 



