306 THE BLOOD. 



From a histological standpoint we generally, as above indicated, 

 discriminate between the different kinds of colorless blood-corpuscles. 

 Chemically considered, however, there is no known essential difference 

 between them, and what little we do know chemically is chiefly in con- 

 nection with the leucocytes. With regard to their importance in the 

 coagulation of fibrin, ALEX. SCHMIDT and his pupils distinguish between 

 the leucocytes which are destroyed in the coagulation and those which 

 are not. The last mentioned give with alkalies or common-salt solutions 

 a slimy mass; the first do not show such behavior. 



The protoplasm of the leucocytes has, during life, amoeboid move- 

 ments which serve partly to make possible the wandering of the cells, 

 and partly to aid in the absorption of smaller grains or foreign bodies 

 and make the phagocytosis possible. The action of various agents 

 such as hyper- and hypotonic salt solutions, of foreign ions, such as 

 iodine, bromine, and salts of the alkaline earths upon the chemotaxis 

 and the phagocytic activity of the leucocytes has been thoroughly 

 studied by HAMBURGER and DE HAAN/ and among other things they have 

 shown that the Ca causes an accellerating influence upon phagocytosis 

 which is peculiar for Ca and does not depend upon its properties as a 

 divalent ion. Because of the contractibility of the leucocytes, the 

 occurrence of myosin in them has been admitted even without any 

 special proof therefore. We know nothing positively whether in the 

 leucocytes, or in the cells, in general, globulins occur with traces 

 of albumins, because cell constituents which used to be called globulins 

 have on more careful investigation been found to be nucleoalbumins 

 or nucleoproteins. The substance observed by HALLIBURTON, 2 and 

 occurring in all cells, which coagulates at 47 to 50 C., is considered as 

 a true globulin. ALEX. SCHMIDT claims to have found serglobulin in 

 equine-blood leucocytes which have been washed with ice-cold water. 



The proteins of the leucocytes as well as the cells in general are prin- 

 cipally compound proteins. For the present it is impossible to state to 

 what extent the nucleoalbumins occur in leucocytes or cells, because in the 

 past no careful differentiation was made between the nucleoalbumins 

 and nucleoproteins. The nucleoproteins are without any doubt the 

 principal constituents of the protoplasm of the white blood-corpuscles, 

 and one of these it seems is identical with the so-called hyaline substance 

 of ROVIDA, which yields a slimy mass when treated with alkalies or 

 NaCl solutions and which occur in pus-cells. 



On digesting the leucocytes with water, a solution of a protein body 



1 Bioch. Zeitschr., 24 and 26. 



2 See Halliburton, On the chem. Physiol. of the animal cell. King's College, London, 

 Physiol. Labor. Collected papers, 1893. 



