ACTION OF AUXETICS 61 



granular cells had become very granular, and 

 the very granular ones were in the act of division, 

 exhibiting centrosomes, and dividing into two, 

 three, four, or six, according to the degree of 

 naaemia. The actual daughter cells, however, 

 varied also in numbers in individual cells of the 

 same specimen, some cells dividing into two, 

 three, and so on ; but the greater the anaemia, 

 the greater the average number of the daughter 

 cells. 



Still, the blood -corpuscles from a healthy man 

 placed upon such a jelly showed no change. 

 Even when the healthy erythrocytes were re- 

 peatedly washed in a saline solution which kept 

 them exactly at the borderland of death they 

 were uninfluenced by its action. No amount of 

 auxetic or reduction of their coefficient of diffusion 

 would induce divisions in healthy red blood-cor- 

 puscles. But if the corpuscles are altered by 

 the cause of secondary anaemia, then they will 

 show increased granulation, and the highly 

 granular ones will divide as the auxetic acts 

 upon them. 



It has been shown (1) that blood-serum will 

 inhibit the action of auxetics on leucocytes and 

 lymphocytes when added to the molten jelly. It 

 seemed possible that it was the presence of the 

 serum which prevented the healthy corpuscles 

 being influenced by them also. But repeated 

 washing of the corpuscles in saline solution must 

 free them from some of the serum, yet they would 

 not divide. Only in conditions in which the 

 blood is altered from the normal will the granular 

 erythrocytes divide in response to the action of 



