62 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



THE END OR FINAL CONDITION OF THE RED GLOBULES. 



Every where throughout the solid constituents of the animal 

 organisation cellular tissue abounds; it forms the basis of 

 every texture and organ of the body. It is, therefore, scarcely 

 to be wondered at that the opinion should have been adopted, 

 that the globules which exist in such vast numbers in the 

 blood, were to be regarded as the primary and even parent 

 cells, out of which all the solid structures of our frame took 

 their origin.* This theory, to the mind of the earlier micro - 

 grapher, must have appeared very rational and seductive ; 

 and so great, indeed, is the plausibility with which, even in the 

 present day, it is frequently invested, that it is still able to 

 claim a few adherents. 



If we regard with the utmost patience and attention the 

 beautiful spectacle of the capillary circulation in any of the 

 more transparent parts of animals, but especially in the 

 tongue of the frog, we shall in vain look for the escape from 

 their containing vessels of even a single red blood corpuscle, 

 independent of a rupture of those vessels. In a normal state, 

 therefore, the blood globules are never free, but are always 

 enclosed in their own proper receptacles. 



A communication, however, between the fluid contents of 



* Amongst those who regard the blood corpuscles as cells, may 

 be named Schwann, Valentin, Addison, Remak, and Barry. Schwann 

 describes the blood globule as a " nucleated cell," whilst Valentin con- 

 siders it to be a nucleus, and that which is usually held to be 

 a nucleus he regards as a nucleolus. Remak states, that he has wit- 

 nessed the development of the globules as parent cells, not within the 

 blood, but within the cells which line the walls of the blood vessels and 

 lymphatics. The views of Addison are confined chiefly to the white 

 globules, which he conceives to be the fully developed nuclei of the red 

 blood corpuscles, and which he believes to be transformed into epithelial 

 cells, &c. &c. Dr. Barry goes further than this ; for he states that every 

 structure which he has examined, arises out of the blood corpuscle, " the 

 crystalline lens itself, and even the spermatozoon and the ovum." The 

 opinions entertained by Gerber seem to be of a nature somewhat similar 

 to the foregoing. It is difficult to understand, however, what his exact 

 sentiments are : they, at all events, go to the extent of supposing that all 

 the solid structures of the body are derived from pre-existing germs, con- 

 tained in the chyle and blood. 



