COMPOSITION OF THE BLOOD-CELLS. 237 



blood-cells of healthy blood the ratio of water to the solid con- 

 stituents was as 2-14 : 1 ; in the blood of cholera patients ^as 

 1*77 : 1; that the ratio of the organic to the inorganic constituents 

 in the cells of healthy blood was as 40 : 1, and in the blood in 

 cholera as 58 : 1. Schmidt, moreover, found an analogous and 

 only gradually differing relation in the blood after the administra- 

 tion of drastic purgatives, since here the mechanical metamor- 

 phosis corresponded entirely to that set up by the cholera process. 

 In other transudative processes, where the loss experienced by 

 the blood principally affects the albuminates and consequently 

 the organic matters, (as in dysentery, Bright's disease, and 

 dropsy from different causes,) Schmidt found precisely opposite 

 relations ; for the blood-cells present this analogy with the 

 plasma, that while the organic matters decrease in quantity, the 

 relation of the mineral substances to the water remains nearly 

 the same. The ratio of the water to the solid constituents in the 

 blood-cells may be as high as 2*4 : 1, while that of the organic to 

 the inorganic substances maybe as high as 28 : 1. The salts, how- 

 ever, according to Schmidt's investigations, remain in the same 

 relative proportions to one another in the cells of blood of this 

 kind as in those of healthy blood. 



Very little is known positively regarding what are called the 

 extractive matters of the blood-cells; in 100 parts of fresh cells of 

 horses* portal blood, T found on an average 0'482, and in those 

 of hepatic venous blood 0'988 of extractive matters free from 

 salts. We shall find that these substances occur in a far larger 

 quantity in the intercellular fluid of the hepatic venous blood than 

 in that of the portal blood. 



In healthy blood the colourless are to the coloured corpuscles in 

 the ratio of 1 : 8 (according to R. Wagner). As the red corpuscles 

 are rendered invisible by the addition of water to the blood, we may 

 in this manner form an approximate estimate of their quantity; 

 in the inflammatory crust, however, this may be best done by acetic 

 acid, which renders the fibrinous coagulum perfectly transparent 

 under the microscope, and makes the cells embedded within it 

 much more distinctly apparent. Their quantity in the blood is 

 considerably increased during digestion ; after fasting, they almost 

 entirely disappear ; at all events this may be observed in frogs 

 kept without food. A diminution in their number is less rarely 

 observed than an augmentation. Remak noticed their extra- 

 ordinary increase after copious venesection. According to Nasse and 

 Popp, their number is often considerably increased in pneumonia 



