50 RED BLOOD-CORPUSCLES 



therefore, is necessary for the examination of 

 blood by this method. 



During this experimentation it was found con- 

 venient to add stain to the jelly in order that 

 the minute structures of the component parts of 

 the cells could be distinguished, and the part these 

 structures play during cell-division noted ; the 

 stain diffuses into the cells with the auxetics. 

 Then it was found that the stains used (the aniline 

 dyes) would if made sufficiently concentrated 

 kill the cells, and that the staining of the centro- 

 somes was coincident with death of the whole cell. 

 But when used in weaker solutions the stain 

 would diffuse into the cells causing staining only 

 of the granules in the first place, the cell being 

 able to continue its movements, until, after some 

 time, the centrosome stained ; the movements 

 ceasing as death occurred. It was discovered 

 that if the diffusion of the stain into the cells was 

 sufficiently prolonged, the stain itself would also 

 cause division to be induced, even without other 

 auxetics. The stains commonly used were Unna's 

 polychrome methylene blue and azur. The cell 

 would divide as the granules within it stained ; 

 but as soon as the centrosome became stained the 

 whole cell died, and the process of division ceased, 

 the structures of the cell remaining in the posture 

 of division reached when death occurred until the 

 ultimate disintegration, or achromasia, set in and 

 the cell contents liquefied and broke up. It was 

 suggested that the dye caused molecular death in 

 the cytoplasmic granules, and they stained first ; 

 that their molecular death then set free some 

 auxetics within the cell ; and that this caused 



