ARCHOPLASM 123 



by causing gradual death, morphia undoubtedly has 

 a profound effect on the cellular cytoplasm, for other 

 alkaloids, so far as they have been tried, do not cause 

 vacuolation of the platelets. On the other hand, 

 we have occasionally seen a vacuolated blood-platelet 

 from a specimen of blood which has been mixed for 

 about twelve hours with a citrated solution (100 per 

 cent of suprarenal extract). It has already been 

 mentioned that extracts of dead tissues lower the 

 coefficient of diffusion, and in producing vacuolation 

 they also produce archoplasm in leucocytes (fig. 24). 

 Possibly, as mentioned before, the archoplasm which 

 is so frequently seen in cancer cells is derived from 

 the vacuolation caused by the action of the remains 

 of dead tissues on the cells. If leucocytes which have 

 been subjected to morphia and have been placed on 

 jelly as above described are watched for some time, 

 patches which might be described as archoplasm may 

 often be seen in them as a result of the dispersal of 

 many of the diffusion-vacuoles induced by the alkaloid. 

 We cannot, of course, state definitely that these patches 

 are identical w r ith what is known as archoplasm, and 

 we have never seen anything which could be described 

 as it in normal leucocytes examined by this method; 

 but that induced in them by extracts and morphia is 

 nearer the usual interpretation of archoplasm as seen 

 in fixed specimens than anything we have seen. 



Since the blood-platelets can be made to become 

 vacuolated by lowering their coefficient of diffusion 

 by the action of the poison morphia; and since all the 

 blood-platelets in a specimen thus respond to it, it 



