334 CIRCULATING FLUIDS: 



yellow inflammatory coat is formed^ in which^ according toPiorry, 

 gray granulations of a pnriform appearance occur. 



Ammonia lias been recommended by Donne as a test for the 

 presence of pus in the blood. Blood treated with ammonia dis- 

 solves into a clear fluids while pus similarly treated forms a stiff 

 jelly. If, therefore, blood contains pus, it will become more or 

 less gelatinous upon the addition of ammonia, and if only a very 

 small quantity of pus is present, then we shall only find stripes of 

 this stringy substance deposited at the bottom of the vessel. I 

 have obtained favorable results from this method when the 

 quantity of pus has not been very minute ; I will not, however, 

 venture to assert that certain results can be obtained by this 

 method when the amount of pus is extremely small. 



Gulliver,! Gluge,2 and many others have availed themselves 

 of the microscope for the detection of pus in the blood, and I 

 am inclined to believe that this method gives the most certain 

 results. The blood contains, in addition to its own corpuscles, 

 the so-termed chyle-corpuscles, which ai^e one half, or even quite, 

 as large again as the blood-corpuscles. They do not possess 

 the yellow colour of the latter ; they are gray, only slightly gra- 

 nular, and possess a sharp, dark, circumscribed edge ; their 

 rolling motion, on inclining the stage of the microscope, shows 

 that they are perfectly spherical, and they do not, like the 

 blood-corpuscles, dissolve in water. If, however, the chyle-cor- 

 puscles remain in contact with water for some time (from half 

 an hour to an hour), they undergo a change ; they increase a 

 little in size, become clearer, their edge appears less sharp, their 

 shape is no longer spherical, but oblong or irregular, and they 

 become more distinctly granular, or else dark points become 

 apparent in the interior, as indications of nuclei. In this con- 

 dition the chyle-corpuscles may be easily mistaken for pus-cor- 

 puscles ; the latter are, however, usually rather larger than the 

 tumefied chyle-corpuscles, and they are paler, their edge is granu- 

 lar, or tuberculated, and often very uneven, their shape is round, 

 or oblong, occasionally irregular, and they appear slightly gra- 

 nular in the interior, indicating from three to five nuclei. In 

 very many cases we see two, three, five, or even more pus-cor- 



• Op. cit. 



^ Fragmente ziir Pathologic des Blutes. Aiiatoinisch-Mikroskopische Untersucli- 

 ungeii. Heft 1. 1839. 



