DR. MARTIN BARRY ON THE CORPUvSCLES OP THE BLOOD. 241 



exhibited in figs. 139, 140, observed in similar situations in others of these larvae (for 

 a particular account of which I refer to the explanation of the Plates), induce me 

 farther to believe that the crystalline may have its origin in a single corpuscle, having 

 the same appearance as a corpuscle of the blood. 



The Elements of the Spermatozoon and those of the Ovum compared with Corpuscles 



of the Blood. 



182. I had made the principal part of the foregoing observations, — when two others 

 followed, which had not been at all anticipated. For, although the facts observed 

 had led me pretty nearly to the conclusion, that every tissue in the body has its origin 

 in corpuscles having the same appearance as corpuscles of the blood, — yet the thought, 

 I confess, had not occurred, that the spermatozoon and the ovum might be imme- 

 diately derived from the same source. It was not until the red colouring matter was 

 noticed, by which I recognized corpuscles having the same appearance as altered 

 blood-corpuscles, in some seminal fluid under examination, from the testis of a Bird, 

 that the idea suggested itself, and led to a farther examination. 



183. The experience gained during the long investigations, the principal results of 

 which have been mentioned in the preceding pages, now make it easy for me to see 

 that the "granules" which previous observers had noticed in this fluid, were masses 

 of discs, or rather, cells filled with discs, — the altered nuclei of corpuscles having the 

 same appearance as corpuscles of the blood. And on examining the ovary, I became 

 equally convinced, that the object figured by myself in the Royal Society's Transac- 

 tions three years since, as the ovum in a rudimental form, — while it admitted of deli- 

 neation just as I then represented it, — was also derived from the same source. 



184. I need scarcely mention the satisfaction afforded by these two additional ob- 

 servations ; not only on account of their being in themselves in the highest degree 

 interesting, and, as it appeared to me, important, — but because of the confirmation 

 I of course believed them to give to all the rest. 



185. In passing into the granular mass, or more properly, into the cell filled with 

 discs (fig. 160.), where the spermatozoa seem to form, the nucleus of the corpuscle 

 in question presented to me appearances in some respects similar to those which I had 

 met with in tracing it into tissues. But I was perhaps more struck with the depth of 

 the red colour, in the more advanced elements of spermatozoa that fell under my 

 notice. The object fig. 161, for instance, was of a deep red. I have seen these semi- 

 nal "granules" in some of the Mammalia; certain of them appearing to contain 

 incompletely formed spermatozoa. 



186. The view, however, just propounded implies another ; which, so far as I know, 

 is also new. The so-called spermatozoon appears to me to be composed of a few 

 coalesced discs. Such has appeared to be its condition in the Rabbit, and in certain 

 Birds. Of course the diff'erent forms of spermatozoa in different animals, sug- 



