114 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



The Effects of certain remedial Agents upon the Constitution 

 and Form of the Blood Corpuscle. 



We have seen, in the remarks on the effects of re-agents, 

 that many solutions and substances applied to the corpuscles, 

 after their abstraction from the system, modify their form, 

 appearance, and properties. 



Thus we have seen that in water, as in any other analogous 

 liquids of less specific gravity than the serum of the blood, 

 that the corpuscles lose their normal form and become 

 circular, their colouring matter passing at the same time into 

 the fluid. 



We have likewise observed that in liquids of an opposite 

 character, and the density of which equals or exceeds that 

 of the blood, their form is preserved and even rendered 

 flatter than ordinary : thus their shape is well maintained or 

 but slightly affected in the white of egg, urine, the saliva, 

 concentrated solutions of the chlorides of sodium, and of 

 ammonium, the carbonates of potassa and ammonia, and of 

 sugar. 



The blood corpuscles likewise preserve their form in the 

 solutions of other substances, the density of which would not 

 appear to be very great, but which are possessed of very 

 strong and decided properties ; thus they maintain their shape 

 well in a solution of iodine, and become but slightly con- 

 tracted in those of chloride of sodium, while, according to 

 Henle, the primitive flattened form of corpuscles swollen by 

 the imbibition of water may be restored to them by the 

 application of the concentrated saline solutions. 



Nitric acid produces an irregular contraction of the cor- 

 puscles. It has been remarked in like manner that a host of 

 substances affect the colour of the corpuscles. 



But it is not alone the form and colour of the blood cor- 

 puscles which are affected by the contact of re-agents ; their 

 properties also are modified by them. 



Thus the corpuscles to which iodine has been added are so 

 hardened by it that they experience little or no change of 

 form in the addition of water. 



