84 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 



The Colorless Blood-corpuscles and the Blood-tablets. 



The Colorless Blood - corpuscles, also called LEUCOCYTES or 

 Lymphoid Cells, which occur in the blood in varying forms and 

 sizes, form in a state of rest spherical lumps of a sticky, highly 

 refractive power, capable of motion, non-membranous protoplasm, 

 which show 1-4 nuclei on the addition of water or acetic acid. In 

 human and mammalial blood they are larger than the red blood- 

 corpuscles. They have also a lower specific gravity than the red 

 corpuscles, move in the circulating blood nearer to the walls of the 

 vessel, and have also a slower motion. 



The number of colorless blood-corpuscles varies not only in the 

 different blood-vessels, but also under different physiological con- 

 ditions. As an average we have only 1 colorless corpuscle for 350- 

 500 red corpuscles. According to the investigations of ALEX. 

 SCHMIDT and his pupils, the leucocytes are destroyed in great part 

 about 71$ in the blood of the horse, according to HEYL on the 

 discharge of the blood before and during coagulation, so that dis- 

 charged blood is much poorer in leucocytes than the circulating 

 blood. The correctness of this statement has been denied by other 

 investigators. 



From a histological standpoint we generally distinguish the 

 different kinds of colorless blood-corpuscles; chemically considered, 

 however, there is no known essential difference between them. 

 With regard to their importance in the coagulation of fibrin 

 ALEX. SCHMIDT and his pupils distinguish between the leucocytes 

 which are destroyed by the coagulation and those which are not. 

 The last mentioned are colored quickly by carmine and give with 

 alkalies or common-salt solutions a slimy mass; the first do not 

 show such behavior. 



The protoplasm of the leucocytes has during life amoeboid 

 movements which partly make possible the wandering of the cells 

 and partly the taking up of smaller grains or foreign bodies 

 within the same. On these grounds the occurrence of myosin in 

 them has been admitted even without any special proof thereof. 

 ALEX. SCHMIDT found serum globulin in equine-blood leucocytes 

 which had been washed with ice-cold water. There are also 

 at least certain leucocytes which yield a slimy mass when treated 



