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XV. OBSERVATIONS ON THE BLOOD DISCS AND THEIR CONTENTS.* 



By John Quekett, Esq., M.R.C.S., $c. 



THE author, after briefly alluding to the great importance of the blood 

 in the animal economy, and to the erroneous opinions which had been 

 entertained respecting its globules or discs, then proceeded to state, 

 that in his frequent examinations of the blood of the human subject, he 

 has often been attracted by the curiously corrugated or mulberry-like 

 appearance which many of the discs presented, and at first he at- 

 tributed this change in form to the salt and water which had been used 

 to dilute them with, previous to examination. The fluid consisted of 

 five grains of salt to an ounce of water ; whenever this was added to 

 recent blood, the discs very soon assumed this mulberry-like character. 

 The first effect produced on the addition of the saline solution was that 

 of the discs becoming stellate; little points appeared first on their 

 edges, and subsequently on their flattened surfaces as well, and after a 

 time these points become rounded, and eventually each disc assumed 

 a mulberry -like appearance, which gave him the idea of their contain- 

 ing small globules or granules in their interior, as ultimately proved to 

 be the case. On one occasion, whilst examining some blood which had 

 been diluted with salt and water, and having been prevented from 

 watching it for a few minutes, he was surprised at the great number of 

 small granules which had made their appearance during this interval, 

 which led him to 'suppose, that these granules might have escaped from 

 some of the red discs, and therefore watched to ascertain whether such was 

 the case. After viewing them for some minutes, he distinctly saw for the 

 first time, one or two of these little bodies escape suddenly from the in- 

 terior of one of the discs, and this soon after was followed by a second, 

 then a third, and so on, until six or seven had escaped. Numerous 

 opportunities having since offered of verifying these observations, it has 

 been found that from most of the discs six or seven of these little gra- 

 nules escape, some being emitted suddenly from the parent disc, whilst 

 others merely make their escape at the edge, and there remain, giving 

 the disc a beaded margin, whilst those, on the contrary, which were 

 projected to some little distance from the parent, moved about the field 



* Read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, March 23rd, 1841, and 

 abstracted by the author. 



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