CHAPTER XXX. 387 



Intern. Monatschr. Anat. Phys., xxi, 1904, p. 344, and xxiii, 1906, 

 p. 359 ; DEETJEN, Zeit. phys. Chem., Ixiii, 1909, p. 1. 



787. Demonstration of a New Body in Red Blood Corpuscles (GOLGI, 

 Boll Soc. Med. Chir. Pavia, 1919, xxxi ; Hcematologica (Napoli), 

 1920). This original communication of Golgi gives two methods of 

 interest to workers on blood : (1) Blood-films are fixed twenty-four 

 to forty-eight hours in equal parts of saturated solutions of mercury 

 chloride and potassium bichromate. They are then transferred into 

 equal parts of 2 per cent, mercury chloride and potassium bichro- 

 mate, to which 5 to 10 c.c. of 1 per cent, gold chloride and 5 to 10 

 drops of acetic acid are added. The films are observed in glycerol, 

 starting from the second or third day after the last treatment 

 until the fifteenth or twentieth day ; (2) drops of blood are fixed 

 in a watch-glass by means of a fluid composed of 2 per cent, mercury 

 chloride 60 c.c., saturated solution of picric acid 20 c.c., 1 per cent, 

 osmic acid 10 c.c., acetic acid 5 drops, with the addition either 

 immediately or after eight to twenty-four hours of 10 c.c. of 1 per 

 cent, gold chloride for every 50 c.c. of fixative. Preparations are 

 made from the sediment with some glycerol, from the second until 

 about the tenth day after fixation. 



Both methods show within the red blood corpuscles a peculiar 

 body with a diameter of about one-third that of adult corpuscles 

 and of about half that of foetal ones. The body occupies the central 

 part of the erytrocytes, and particularly by means of the second 

 process it appears to have a fine, sometimes more fibrillar, sometimes 

 more reticular structure. Its contours, though clearly defined, are 

 irregular, and there is no indication whatever of a limiting membrane. 

 This " reticulo-fibrillar apparatus " is not a nucleus, as the latter 

 remains colourless by the new methods, not only in the white, but 

 also in the nucleated red corpuscles, in which the apparatus appears 

 concentrically arranged round the unstained nucleus. According 

 to Golgi this apparatus does not correspond to any of the structures 

 already described within the red corpuscles, but it reminds one a 

 little of the endoglobular body recently demonstrated by Petrone, 

 by means of a lead impregnation method, and not to be confused 

 with the well-known Petrone's bodies. Golgi is convinced that the 

 images obtainable by his two new methods are the expression of a 

 real structure situated within the red blood corpuscles, but he does 

 not feel able at present to give any opinion about their significance. 

 The new methods stain also the centrosome in the white corpuscles 



of the blood. 



252 



