THE NUMBER OF BLOOD-CELLS. 231 



termed spontaneous ansemia, the coloured blood-cells are extra- 

 ordinarily diminished, although Becquerel and Rodier state that 

 they have observed two cases of this disease in which the chlorotic 

 blood was rich in corpuscles. During the first eight or ten days of 

 typhus, the blood-corpuscles are always increased ; but subsequently 

 to that period, at least until the twenty-first day, their number is 

 considerably diminished. In other diseases, we are unable to trace 

 any very perceptible fluctuations in the number of the corpuscles ; 

 and hence the results of most experimentalists do riot coincide 

 very closely. Becquerel and Rodier, as well as Popp, agree how- 

 ever in asserting that the number of blood-corpuscles is dimi- 

 nished in violent inflammations, pneumonia, and acute articular 

 rheumatism. 



Tn chlorosis, the amount of the dry blood-corpuscles has been 

 found to sink to 80, and even as low as to 46'2 p.m. In spinal irri- 

 tation, Popp found 120*5 p.m. as the lowest number, and 140'5 p.m. 

 as the maximum (his mean normal number being 120); in plethora 

 he found the corpuscles much less increased than in spinal irritation. 

 Schmidt, who found 513 moist blood-cells in normal male blood, 

 saw the number rise to 559 in cholera; in the blood of women, 

 (where the mean number for the corpuscles is about 400 p.m. 

 according to him,) the number has risen to 464. The bare results 

 of the analyses cannot attain any physiological value until we are 

 able to determine the conditions in which this augmentation of the 

 corpuscles is absolute, or in which it is merely relative ; and for 

 the present we can only hazard a conjecture in reference to this 

 question. In cholera the apparent augmentation is only relative ; 

 for the admirable investigations of Schmidt and others on the blood 

 in cholera show that in this disease water and salts are the princi- 

 pal constitaents which are lost, that the serum is consequently 

 thickened, but diminished in volume, and that its ratio to the 

 blood-cells is therefore also diminished. Moreover, according to 

 Schmidt's calculation, a number of corpuscles are destroyed in 

 cholera, so that the blood of a healthy individual contains abso- 

 lutely more blood-cells than that of a cholera patient. 



In the earliest stage (within the first week) of typhus, as well 

 as in plethora and spinal irritation, we are inclined to believe that 

 there is an absolute increase of cells ; at ail events, no separation of 

 serum, or of any of its constituents, is ever observed in these 

 conditions. 



We forbear entering any further into the detail of the observa- 

 tions made on the proportion of the corpuscles to the intercellular 



