CONSTITUENTS OF THE BLOOD- CORPUSCLES. 



189 



The following table contains the chief results of his observa- 

 tions : 



100 parts of inorganic matters : 



These results coincide with those of Nasse, who found the 

 most phosphates in the blood of those animals which were dis- 

 tinguished for the abundance of their blood-corpuscles, namely, 

 swine, geese, and hens ; in sheep and goats, on the other hand, in 

 whose blood he found comparatively few corpuscles, he also found 

 the least phosphates. On another occasion, Nasse* has also 

 expressed the opinion that the phosphates must be principally 

 contained in the blood-corpuscles. 



In man, as we see, this difference is the most obvious ; in the 

 carnivora it is most marked in the acids ; and in the herbivora, in 

 the alkalies. Schmidt adds, that the nature of the food which the 

 animal may take, or variety of race in the case of man, exerts no 

 influence on these relations. 



Earthy phosphates, as we have already mentioned, also occur 

 in the blood-cells, but both relatively and absolutely in far less 

 quantity than in the intercellular fluid. 



In the blood-cells of 1000 parts of blood, Schmidt found only 

 0*086 of the phosphates of lime and magnesia, while in the inter- 

 cellular fluid he found 0*332 ; or in 1000 parts of blood-cells, 

 0*218, and in 1000 parts of intercellular fluid, 0*550 of earthy 

 phosphates. 



The iron of the blood pertains, as is well known, almost entirely 

 to the haematin of the blood-cells ; since the quantity of iron in 

 the ash, when compared with the number of coloured blood-cells, 

 is somewhat variable, we conclude, as has been already stated, 

 that the quantity of hsematin must consequently vary in the blood- 

 cells. 



* Handworterbuch der Physiologie. Bd. 1, S. 165. 



