88 STEUCTUEE OF COLORED BLOOD-CORPUSCLES. 



are living, but the old red corpuscles consist of inanimate matter. They are 

 no more living than the cuticle or the hard, horny substance of nail or hair is 

 living." * He therefore denied the contractility and amo3boid movement of 

 colored blood-corpuscles. 



Klebs was the first who accorded them life and contractility, t He did this 

 because, on preventing evaporation and raising the temperature of blood, he 

 noticed, aside from motion of the corpuscles, the protrusion and retraction of 

 knobs, and the formation and disappearance of scallops. But though the 

 correctness of his observation was not doubted, his inferences were strenu- 

 ously contradicted by Rollett and others, t Lankester observed " amoeboid 

 figures " when colored blood-corpuscles had been subjected to the action 

 of dilute ammonia and acetic acid, of which he says : " The behavior 

 of these corpuscles under alternate weak ammoniacal and acid vapors 

 furnished a very curious parallel to the movements of amoeboid proto- 

 plasm, and a careful consideration of the phenomena may throw some 

 light on the nature of protoplasmic contractility." Bottcher admits 

 the possibility of vital contractility, but thinks it cannot be compared 

 to that of colorless blood-corpuscles. || Briicke,1[ also, admits cautiously 

 this possibility. Preyer** uses many qualifying expressions, such as "only 

 in part," u under certain circumstances," " in some degree," " temporarily," 

 "at certain times." He observed active form-changes of red corpuscles 

 in extravasated amphibian blood, examined in the moist chamber, which led 

 him to the conclusion that " the substance of these corpuscles consists of dis- 

 solved coloring matter and a colorless material (protoplasma) which, both 

 when still in connection with the coloring matter and when free from this, 

 shows under certain circumstances phenomena of contractility similar to those 

 observed in many lower organisms." He adds : " As a rule it evinces no con- 

 tractility, and constitutes, as a modified protoplasm, the stroma of amphibian 

 blood-corpuscles." tt Max Schultze, who denied the contractility of red blood- 

 corpuscles of man and mammals (although when subjected to a very high 

 temperature fifty to fifty-two degrees C., nearly enough to kill them he 

 saw protrusions and detachments of portions), admitted that the red blood- 

 corpuscles of very young chicken-embryos are contractile, tt Friedreich 

 observed in an enfeebled anaemic patient polymorphous red blood-corpuscles, 

 with active though very slow form-changes, which he could not but interpret 

 as the result of contractility. In the post mortem blood of a woman who had 

 been leucsemic he saw similar polymorphous corpuscles ; and in a case of 

 albuminous urine he repeatedly observed colored blood-corpuscles from which 

 minute portions became constricted and separated, as well as those which 



* Ibidem, p. 43. 



t Centralblatt fur mediziiiiscue Wissenscli., 1863, No. 514, p. 851. 



t For the views of Rollett, Max Schultze, Kiihne, etc., see "Strieker's Hamlbuch," cit., 

 Leipzig (1869) edition, p. 287 ; American reprint (1872), p. 286. 



Op. c., p. 378. 



|| Archiv fur Mikr. Anat., vol. xiv. cit. p. 91 ; translated in Quarterly Journal of Micro- 

 scopical Science, Oct., 1877, p. 391. 



U i.e. 



** Op. c., p. 417 et seq. 



tt Ibid., p. 440. 



$t Verhandlungen der Niederrheinischen Gesellschaft fur Natur und Heilkuude in Bonn, 

 am 8 Juni, 1864 ; Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, 1864, No. 36, p. 358. 



" Bin Beitrag zur Lebensgeschichte der rothen Blutkorperchen." Virchow's Archiv, 

 vol. 41 (1867), p. 395. 



