ACTION OX OXTDATIOX AND LEUCOCYTES. ' 247 



Action on Oxidation. — If fresh leaves of lettuce or dandelion 

 are triturated with five or ten times their weight of water, with 

 free access of air, the fluid filtered, and fresh guaiac tincture 

 «added to it, a blue colour is produced, showing that ozone is 

 ]^resent in it. To test the action of a drug on the forma- 

 tion of ozone, two portions of the filtered fluid are put in test- 

 gl.isses, and the drug added to one. Both are allowed to stand 

 for one or two hours, with occasional shaking, fresh guaiac tinc- 

 ture is dropped cautiously into both, and by the greater or less 

 depth of blue produced in each fluid we judge of the amount 

 of ozone present in each. In this way it is found that quinine 

 diminishes or stops the formation of ozone in these fluids, and 

 at the same time the little protoplasma-granules with which 

 they abound are rendered motionless and altered in appearance. 

 There seems to be some connection between these protoplasma- 

 granules and the formation of ozone, as the stoppage of the one 

 runs parallel with the alteration in the other. 



Quinine seems to have the power of diminishing oxidation 

 within the body as well as out of it, since when injected into 

 the blood it lessens the excretion of urea and diminishes the 

 temperature both in health and disease during life, and hinders 

 its rise after deaih, and this action is apparently not due 

 to nervous centres regulating temperature, or to changes in the 

 circulation allowing quicker cooling by the skin. 



Action on White Blood- Corpuscles. — To examine this, we take 

 a drop of blood from the finger, put it on the under surface of a 

 thin glass, and lay it over the opening in Strieker's warm 

 stage,* and examine it with a high power of the microscope, 

 such as Eoss's -j^^ or Hartnack's No. 10, at a temperature of 

 98° F. After satisfying ourselves that the white corpuscles are 

 in active motion, we take a solution of the drug in fresh serum, 

 or in half per cent, solution of common salt ; mix a drop of it 

 with the blood and examine again. Or we may use Max 

 Schultze's warm stage, which consists of a flat piece of brass 

 covering the stage of the microscope, and having a long arm 

 projecting at each side and a thermometer in front. When a 

 lamp is placed under one or both arms, they conduct the heat 



* Strieker's Histology, IS'ew Sydenliam Society's translation, p. 13. 



