CHAPTER XXXVII 

 THE TRANSPORTING SYSTEM OF THE BODY 



220. The Blood. After the food has been digested it still 

 remains to be distributed throughout the body to the cells 

 which need it. The office of distribution is performed by the 

 blood, a watery fluid, yellowish in color, in which float a vast 



FIG. 89. Corpuscles of blood, as seen under the microscope. Four white 

 ones are shown. The red ones have a tendency to form rows. (Funke and 

 Brubaker.) 



number of very minute pinkish disks known as red blood 

 corpuscles. The watery part of the blood is the plasma. In 

 a cubic millimeter of blood, which is much less than a drop, 

 there are more than five million corpuscles. These corpuscles 

 are really cells, though they lack the customary nucleus. In 



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