76 STRUCTURE OF COLORED BLOOD-CORPUSCLES. 



According to Hayem,* the red blood-corpuscles in the newly born are 

 much less uniform in size than in adults ; corpuscles larger than the largest 

 and smaller than the smallest adult corpuscles occur comparatively often. 

 The size varies between .00325 and .01025mm. Hayem also calls atten- 

 tion t to the still smaller ones measuring only .002 mm. which he considers 

 young and growing blood-corpuscles, so-called hsematoblasts. He asserted 

 having observed all transition sizes between these and the largest. He found 

 heematoblasts increased whenever, under physiological or pathological condi- 

 tions, a reparation of blood occurs e. g., he found them more abundant in 

 children than in adults, and more abundant during menstruation, and after 

 losses of blood, also during reconvalescence after acute diseases.! 



Netsvetzki reported having found minute corpuscles moving in all direc- 

 tions, as constant constituents of normal human blood. [Although my obser- 

 vations as to the diversity of size of colored blood-corpuscles refer to healthy 

 blood, I will not omit to mention here that Vanlair and Masius having, in the 

 blood of a patient who had symptoms of interstitial hepatitis, found a number 

 of small globular corpuscles, gave them the name of microcytes, and called the 

 patient's disease " microcythsemia," which they considered to be a peculiar 

 alteration of the blood. || Cases of so-called microcythemia have since been 

 reported by Litten, in a tuberculous individual ; If by Osier in pernicious 

 anaemia ** ; and by Lepine and Germont in cases of cancer of the stomach, tt 

 Soernsen distinguished in disease between oligocythemia, in which the num- 

 ber of red blood-corpuscles is diminished, achroiocythemia, in which their 

 richness in coloring matter is diminished, and microcythemia, in which their 

 size is diminished. In a case of chlorosis observed by him, the average size 

 of the colored corpuscles was found to be only .0045, instead of the normal 

 .006 to .0075 mm.tt 



Hicks found in the fluid from an ovarian cyst small, transparent, color- 

 less, globular bodies, which had been detached from red blood-corpuscles, and 

 which were of a diameter of about the TFOTTO of an inch. 



Laptschinsky reported |||| finding very small corpuscles, only one-third as 



" Des caracteres anatomiques du sang chez le nouveau-ne pendant les premiers jours de 

 la vie." Compt. Rendus, torn. 84 (1877), p. 1166. 



t " &ur la nature et la signification des petits globules rouges du sang." Ibid., No. 22, 

 p. 1239. 



t " Note sur 1'evolutiou des globules rouges dans le sang des vertebres ovipares." Compt. 

 Rendus, torn. 85, No. 20, p. 907-909. " Sur Involution des globules rouges dans le sang des 

 animaux superieurs" (verteb. ovipares). Ibid., No. 27, p. 1285. 



% " Zur Histologie des Menschen brutes. Kleine sich nach alien Richtungen Inn bewe- 

 gende Korperchen als constante Bestandtlieile des normalen Menschenblutes." Centralzeit- 

 ung fur die Medicinisclien Wisseuschaften, 1873, No. 10. 



|| " De la Microcythemie, Bruxelles, 1871 ; 101 pp. 



If " Aus der Klinik des Herrn Geh. Rath. Prof. Frerichs, " Ueber einige Veranderungen 

 rother Blutkorperchen." Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift; 1877, No. 1. 



" Ueber die Eutwickelung von Blutkorperchen in KnocluMimarlv bei pernicioser Aiue- 

 mie." Centralblatt fiir die mediciuischen Wissenschaften ; 1877, No. 28 ; 1878, No. 26. 



tt Note sur la presence temporaire dans le sang uumaiii rt'un grand nombrede globules 

 rouges tres petits (microcytes)." Gazette Medicale de Paris ; 1877, No. 18, pp. 218 and 219 ; 

 and " Note relative a I'infiuence des saignees sur 1'apparition dans le sang humain des petits 

 globules rouges (microcytes)." Id., No. 24, p. 296. 



tt " Undersogelser om Antallet af rode og hoide Blodlegemer under forskjellige physio- 

 logiske og pathologiske Tilstande." Inaugural Dissertation, Kopeuhagen ; 1876, 236 pp. 



<tt "Observations on Pathological Changes in the Red Corpuscle." Quarterly Journal 

 of Microscopical Science, vol. xil. (1872), p. 114. 



Illl " Zur Pathologic des Blutes." Centralblatt f. d. med. Wiss., 1874, No. 42, p. 658. 



