RED CORPUSCLES OF THE BLOOD. 



377 



have shown, the characteristic absorption bands of haemoglo- 

 bin, providing that a spectrum apparatus of appropriate con- 

 struction is connected with the microscope. Strieker has also 

 demonstrated in the microscopic spectrum the conversion of the 

 oxyhsemoglobin bands into those of reduced haemoglobin on 

 alternate exposure to and CO 2 . 



The circumstance of the red blood corpuscles being the car- 

 riers of the colouring matter of the blood, confers upon them 

 their obviously great importance in the organism at large, on 

 account of the part which the hsemoglobin plays in the ex- 

 change of the respiratory gases. 



As regards the form of the blood corpuscles when examined 

 microscopically in fresh blood, the greater number of the iso- 

 lated corpuscles will be found to present perfectly circular con- 

 tours, and to be of nearly equal size (fig. 66, a). 



The description that must be given of this form may be best 



Fig. 66. 



Fig. 66. Red blood corpuscles. 



understood by making the corpuscles float by gentle taps on 

 the covering glass. They then offer alternately the circular 

 form and another completely different one, that, namely, of 

 short rods with rounded poles and slightly hollowed surfaces, 

 and resemble a finger biscuit, or a section carried through the 

 axis of a bi-concave lens (fig. 66, fr). Such a corpuscle, as it 

 again revolves, places itself upon its edge again, and, in short, 



