COMPOSITION OF RED CORPUSCLES. 



155 



The red corpuscles. These consist of a delicate external envelope 

 enclosing coloured fluid contents. 1 In all vertebrates below mammals 

 they contain a nucleus, the chief chemical constituent of which is 

 nuclein (see p. 65). 



The organic matter in one hundred parts of dried red corpuscles 

 consists of : 2 



Goose's blood was taken as an instance of one in which nucleated 

 red corpuscles are present ; the higher percentage of proteids apparent 

 in this is due to the included nuclein. 



The mineral constituents of the red corpuscles vary greatly in 

 relative quantity in different species of animals. Thus potassium con- 

 stitutes 40 - 89 per cent, of the total ash of human red corpuscles, and 

 sodium only 971, whereas in the dog the percentage of potassium is 

 6-07, and of sodium 3617 (0. Schmidt). 



The remarkable excess of potassium over sodium salts is the opposite to 

 their relative proportion in plasma. 



The chief organic constituent of the corpuscles, haemoglobin, will be 

 considered in a separate article. The other organic constituents consist 

 of nucleo-proteid, lecithin, and cholesterin. 



The nucleo-proteid of the red corpuscle. Wooldridge's 3 method for 

 obtaining the nucleo-proteid consists in centrifugalising defibrinated 

 blood repeatedly with a 1 per cent, sodium chloride solution until all 

 the serum is washed away. The red corpuscles are then laked by 

 the addition of water, and the mixture is shaken with a little ether, 

 to assist the solution; the white corpuscles are allowed to settle, 

 or removed by the centrifuge. To the clear but highly coloured 

 decanted fluid a little 1 per cent, solution of acid sodium sulphate is 

 added. This causes a considerable precipitate of nucleo-proteid, which 

 is chiefly derived from the red corpuscles, but a small part of which 

 may come from the white corpuscles and blood platelets. 



The material thus obtained was shown by Kiihne, 4 who used a rather 

 different method of separating it, to possess fibrino-plastic properties. It 

 was further examined by Halliburton and Friend, 5 who found that it was 



1 Schiifer in Quain's "Anatomy," 10th edition. 1893, vol. i. pt. 2, p. 210. 



2 Hoppe-Seyler and Jiidell, Med. Ohem. Untersuch., Berlin, 1866, Heft 3. Manasse, 

 Ztschr. /. physiol. Chem., Strassburg, Bd. xiv. S. 452, gives the following percentages 

 Lecithin, 1-687; Cholesterin, 0*151. 



3 Arch. f. Physiol., Leipzig, 1881, S. 387. 



4 "Lehrbuch," S. 193. 



5 Journ. Physiol., Cambridge and London, 1886, vol. x. p. 532. 



