DEVELOPMENT OF LIVING MATTER. 61 



of a poor constitution per se. The colored blood-corpuscles 

 greatly vary in their yellow tinge in different persons ; the paler 

 this tinge is, the more readily we can tell pale looks of the face or 

 chlorosis. The colored blood-corpuscles stick together in coin- 

 like rows only when the plasma holds a larger amount of fibrin ; 

 in the blood of persons with a poor constitution, such rows do 

 not occur ; in individuals of moderate vigor, the rows temporarily 

 may be missing, at other times present. In the blood of persons 

 of good constitution, who had passed through severe ailments, I 

 several times found both coarsely and finely granular colorless 

 blood-corpuscles, just as in originally healthy persons who, by 

 chronic diseases, become broken down. Inf fact, the microscope 

 reveals so much of the general health of a person that more can 

 be told by it, in many instances, than by the naked eye, or by 

 physical examination. 



Life insurance should be based upon microscopical examination, as well 

 as on percussion and auscultation. Marriages should be allowed, in doubtful 

 cases, only upon the permit of a reliable microscopist. Last season a young 

 physician asked me whether I believed in the marriage among kindred. He 

 fell in love with his cousin, and so did the cousin with him. I examined his 

 blood, and told him that he was a " nervous" man, passing sleepless nights, and 

 had a moderately good constitution. The condition being suspected in the 

 kindred lady, marriage was not advisable for fear that the offspring might 

 degenerate. So great was his faith in my assertions that he gave up the idea 

 of marrying his cousin offering her the last chance, viz., the examination of 

 her blood. This beautiful girl came to my laboratory, and, very much to my 

 surprise, I found upon examination of her blood a first-class constitution. The 

 next day I told the gentleman, " You had better marry her." 



As a matter of course, every particle of the organism, either in 

 a normal or in a morbid condition, will exhibit characteristics as 

 attributed to the colorless blood-corpuscles. The bioplasson is 

 one uninterrupted mass throughout the body, and is connected 

 from the top of the head to the heels, in what we call tissues. 



Several months ago, Dr. Paul F. Munde" brought me a specimen of the 

 size of a pea, which, he said, he found in a large amount of fluid blood 

 vomited out half an hour before by a patient. After immediate examination 

 of a section from the specimen, I told the doctor that his patient was a pale, 

 emaciated, narrow-chested person, who had catarrhal pneumonia, which led 

 by localized gangrene to sloughing of the piece of the lung, on which a broken 

 blood-vessel was visible. I foretold, besides, that the patient would die within 

 one year. I explained to the doctor and to Dr. L. Elsberg, who also was 

 present in the laboratory, what led me to such a diagnosis and prognosis. 

 There were visible alveoli of the lung, and both the walls of the alveoli and 

 their calibers were crowded with inflammatory corpuscles, coagulated fibrin 

 being absent. These are symptoms of catarrhal pneumonia. In some parts 



