112 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 



A decrease in the number of red corpuscles occurs in anaemia 

 from different causes. Each hemorrhage causes an acute anaemia 

 or oligaemia. Even during the bleeding the remaining blood be- 

 comes richer in water by diminished secretion and excretion, as 

 also by an abundant absorption of parenchymous fluid somewhat 

 poorer in albumin and strikingly poorer in red blood-corpuscles. 

 The oligaemia passes soon into a hydraemia. The amount of albumin 

 then gradually increases again; but the re-formation of the red 

 blood-corpuscles is slower, and after the hydraemia follows also an 

 oligocythaemia. After a little time the number of blood-corpuscles 

 rises to normal; but the re-formation of haemoglobin does not keep 

 pace with the re-formation of the corpuscles, and a chlorotic con- 

 dition may appear (LAACHE, BUNTZEN, OTTO). A considerable 

 decrease in the number of red corpuscles occurs also in chronic 

 anaemia and chlorosis; still in such cases an essential decrease in 

 the amount of haemoglobin occurs without an essential decrease in 

 the number of blood-corpuscles. The decrease in the amount of 

 haemoglobin is more characteristic of chlorosis than a decrease in 

 the number of red corpuscles. 



A very considerable decrease in the number of red corpuscles 

 (from 300,000 to 400,000 in 1 c. mm.) and diminishing in the amount 

 of haemoglobin (from J to ^) occurs in malignant anaemia (HAYEM, 

 LEPINE, LAACHE, and others). On the contrary, the individual 

 red corpuscles are larger and richer in haemoglobin than they ordi- 

 narily are, and the number stands in an inverse relationship to the 

 amount of haemoglobin (HAYEM). 



The Constitution of the Red Corpuscles. Irrespective of the 

 changes in the amount of haemoglobin, as just mentioned, the con- 

 stitution of the blood-corpuscles may be changed in other ways. 

 By abundant transudation, as in cholera, the blood-corpuscles may 

 give up water, potassium, and phosphoric acid to the concentrated 

 plasma and become correspondingly richer in organic substances 

 (0. SCHMIDT). By a few other transudations processes, as in dys- 

 entery and dropsy with albuminuria, a considerable amount of 

 albumin passes from the blood, the plasma becomes richer in water, 

 and the blood-corpuscles may take up water and so become poorer 

 in organic substance (0. SCHMIDT). 



The number of colorless blood-corpuscles is found to be in- 



