

STRUCTURE OF COLORED BLOOD-CORPUSCLES. 91 



or rather yields, since the state of combination of the components is not 

 known) a variety of albuminoid and other bodies, the most easily separable of 

 which is haemoglobin ; secondly, the matter which segregates to form Robert's 

 macula ; and thirdly, a residuary stroma apparently homogeneous in the 

 mammalia (excepting so far as the outer surface or pellicle may be of a differ- 

 ent chemical nature), but containing in the other vertebrata a sharply defin- 

 able nucleus; this nucleus being already differentiated but not sharply 

 delineated during life, and consisting of (or separable into) at least two com- 

 ponents, one (paraglobulin) precipitable by CO 2 , and removable by the action 

 of weak NH 3 ; the other pellucid and not granulated by acids." 



A residuary stroma, such as Lankester here speaks of, seems to have been 

 first recognized by Nasse, who said* that the red blood-corpuscle " consists 

 of a basis tissue, insoluble in water, which is penetrated by a red substance, 

 probably dissolved, or at least in water easily soluble (the red coloring matter 

 of the blood), and some water, and within which there is an aggregation of 

 solid granules not connected with the coloring matter." Rollett, t also, 

 assumed that a stroma or matrix enters into the structure of the colored 

 elastic extensible substance of the red blood-corpuscle, to which the form and 

 the peculiar physical properties of the corpuscle are due. This stroma is, 

 however, according to Bottcher, an artificial product, " nothing more than a 

 residue of the colorless part of the red blood-corpuscles, varying much in 

 form and extent, which remains after the dissolution of the original structural 

 relations." + Briicke considered the most probable interpretation of the forms 

 of colored blood-corpuscles, based on their appearances after the addition of 

 boracic acid, to be the existence of a porous mass of motionless, very soft, 

 colorless, hyaline substance, which he calls cecoid, in the interspaces of which 

 is imbedded the living body of the corpuscle ; which body he calls zooid, and 

 which consists of the nucleus (where that exists) and all the remaining part 

 of the corpuscle containing the haemoglobin . But Rollett insisted that the 

 forms on which Briicke based this interpretation are products of decompo- 

 sition. || Strieker agrees with Briicke as to the existence of the oecoid, but 

 separates, in oviparous corpuscles, the remaining portion into nucleus and 

 body. 1[ Of the three views thus presented, Lankester gives, after Strieker, 

 the following tabular statement : ** 



( Stroma. 

 Coloring matter. 



, T , 



CEcoid = outer part of stroma. 



Membrane = ecoid. 



Body =zooid minus nucleus. 



Nucleus = zooid minus body. 



According to 

 Rollett. 



According to 

 Briicke. 



f According to 

 ( Strieker. 



* " Blut." B. Wagner's " Handworterbuch der Physiologic." Braunschweig, 1842, vol. i., 

 p. 89. 



t"Versuche uud Beobachtungen am Blute." Moleschott's Untersuchungen, ix. ; also 

 Hitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, vol. xlvi., Div. 2 (1862), pp. 65-98; and Strieker's 

 " Handbuch," cit. Leipzig edition, 1869, p. 295 ; American, p. 284. 



i Op. cit., Archiv fur Mikroskopische Anatomie, p. 90, translated in Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science, October, 1877, p. 390. 



"Ueber den Bau der rothen Blutkorper"; Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, 

 vol. Ivi., Div. 2 (1867), p. 79. 



|| " Ueber Zersetzungsbilder der rothen Blutkorperchen " ; Untersuchungen aus dem 

 Institute der Physiologic und Histologie in Graz. Leipzig, 1870, p. 1. 



H"Mikrochemische Untersuchungeu der rothen Blutkorperchen"; Archiv fur die ge- 

 sannnte Physiologie des Mensehen and der Thiere (Pniiger's), vol. i. (1868), p. 592. 



** Op. cit. in a foot-note to p. 374. 



