226 RED PARTICLES 



blood beginning to putrefy I have likewise observed some of 

 these vesicles break into pieces, without becoming spherical, 

 and I have distinctly perceived the black spot in the centre 

 fissured through its middle, another proof that it is not a per- 

 foration. 



In the blood of an eel, which was beginning to putrefy, I 

 have seen the vesicle split, and open, and the particle in its 

 centre come out of the fissure (cvn). As the putrefaction 

 advances, these vesicles which had become round spheres, or 

 like mulberries, and those which had been merely fissured, each 

 break down into smaller pieces : M. de la Torre seems to think 

 they have joints, and break regularly into seven parts ; and 

 Leeuwenhoek suspected these globules (as he called them) 

 were constantly made of six lesser globules. 



But from observations I am convinced there is nothing re- 

 gular or constant in the number of pieces into which they 

 break. I have seen them fall into six, seven, eight, or more 

 pieces, by putrefaction ; for putrefaction breaks them down in 

 the manner it destroys other animal solids. I need hardly take 

 notice, that the small pieces into which the vesicles break are 

 equally red as the vesicle itself. The theory of the red globules 

 being composed of six serous ones, compacted together, and the 

 serous globules of six of lymph, has not the least foundation, 

 and is entirely overthrown by the simple experiment of mixing 

 the blood with six, or thirty-six, times its quantity of water ; 

 for the water dissolving the globules, ought to. reduce them to 



(cvu.) When the hlood-discs of the lower vertebrate animals are 

 drying or dried on glass, and quite fresh, fissures often extend from 

 the circumference of the envelope to the nucleus. In the larger cor- 

 puscles, as of the toad and siren, I have counted many such fissures, 

 which, as well as the granular appearance which the corpuscles of 

 mammalia are prone to assume/ probably led to Leeivwenhoek's 5 noted 

 fancy, that the corpuscles are formed of six globules, their union con- 

 stituting the red, and their separation the white part of the blood ; 

 this error was well disputed by Senac. c De la Torre d depicted blood- 

 corpuscles as if cleaving to pieces by fissures. 



a See Note cvi. c Traite du Coeur, torn, ii, pp. 91, 659, 



b Opera Omnia, toin. iii, pp. 220-21, ed. 1749. 



figs. 4, 6, 4to, Ludg. Bat. 1719 ; and d Nouve Osservazioni intorno la storia 



Select Works, tr. by Samuel Hoole, naturale, tab. 4, figs. 3, 4, and tab. 5, 



vol. ii, Part HI, p. 239, Plate xvii, fig. 16, 8vo, Napoli, 1763. 

 figs. 29,31', 4to, Lond. 1807. 



