DR. MARTIN BARRY ON THE CORPUSCLES OF THE BLOOD. 221 



VoGEL, " being covered with minute granules ; and with the addition of acetic acid 

 they undergo a peculiar change. There then appear simple granules, generally two 

 or three in each pus-globule (rarely one only or four), which are oval or roundish, 

 having for the most part a somewhat projecting margin, giving them almost a basin- 

 shaped appearance. They are surrounded by a delicate halo or covering, which, 

 with the continued influence of acetic acid, entirely disappears, so that the isolated 

 granules remain alone-f-." The numerous observations of Gulliver on pus, are de- 

 serving of attention J. This author, however, describes the " molecules" (the term he 

 uses) as spherical, and as " centrically inclosed in an external part ;" and he does not 

 mention the depression which each of these " molecules" presents. 



104. My own views of the pus-globule are in some respects peculiar. The for- 

 mation of this object out of the nucleus of the blood-corpuscle, appears to me to be 

 referable to the same process, essentially, as that by means of which the germinal 

 spot comes to fill the germinal vesicle, in the ovum. This process having been par- 

 ticularly described in a former memoir §, I need not refer to it in detail here. Its 

 effects are seen progressing in fig. 63, and they have been rendered more obvious by 

 acetic acid, and by alcohol in fig. 64. In the latter figure, an originally single nucleus 

 consists, for the most part of two, in one instance of three, layers of discs or inci- 

 pient cells ; the highly refracting (and probably most essential) portion being, as in 

 all other nuclei, the part formed last. — ^That the term nucleus is here not inappro- 

 priate, as applied to the pus-globule, will I presume be admitted, should others, 

 before adding any foreign substance, find the pus-globule to be contained within a 

 cell, as frequently as I have noticed this to be the case. If so, however, the highly 

 refracting discs form together, not the " nucleus," as they have been called, but the 

 nucleolus. — It will be seen that I diffler from previous observers, in considering the 

 outer portion of the pus-globule to be composed of discs or incipient cells. But this 

 is only one of many differences between the observations here recorded, and those of 

 other investigators. 



105. I have already stated that the object called by me the disc, had in several 

 instances been described by some as a peculiar structure found in two or three kinds 

 of globules. The term disc is synonymous with the "basin-shaped granules'* of 

 VoGEL, and the " spherical molecules" of Gulliver, seen in the globule of pus ; the 

 same object having been observed also by Guterbock, Henle, and others who have 

 investigated the structure of the pus-globule. 



106. The condition of portions of a capillary network, which I have found in pus, 

 — a minute fragment of which, in outline, is represented in fig. 65, — confirms the 



t Dr. VoGEL has since published a work entitled " Physiologisch-pathologische Untersuchungen uber Eiter, 

 Eiterung, &c." Erlangen, 1838, which, however, I have not seen. 



X London Medical Gazette, 1839, 1840. Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, 1840. 

 § Researches in Embryology : Third Series. Philosophical Transactions, 1840, Part II. par. 385. 



2 g2 



