CHANGES IN THE RED CORPUSCLES BY ELECTRICITY. 391 



Mammals, there follows a stage in which the corpuscles again 

 become smooth ; their substance is then equably thickened, but 

 the two other diameters have become somewhat smaller, whilst 

 the mass either on one or both sides of the nucleus becomes 

 swollen, so that the latter as it were closes a communication 

 between the halves of a double funnel. At length the walls of 



Fig. 71. 



these funnels coalesce, and the corpuscles become egg-shaped or 

 round. In the latter condition they are at first still coloured, but 

 at a later period they gradually lose their colouring material, 

 and there then only remains a dull colourless mass surrounding 

 the nucleus. The nuclei appear somewhat rounded and more 

 clearly visible in their interior. 



Just as the coalescence of corpuscles may be observed to 

 occur at the points where they are accidentally in contact, so 

 it frequently happens that two or more blood corpuscles, when 

 they have become coloured spheroids, completely coalesce with 

 each other. The larger spheroids with numerous nuclei then 

 lose their colouring matter just in the same manner as the 

 individual corpuscles. Another highly remarkable phenomenon 

 is that the nucleus may escape suddenly or gradually from the 

 corpuscles. Non-nucleated coloured spheroids thus originate, 

 which again gradually lose their colour. Neumann also has 

 subjected the operation of induction currents upon the blood 

 corpuscles to examination, and the phenomena he has observed 

 agree in all essential particulars with those that have been 

 above described. 



On the other hand, the constant electric current does not 

 produce these effects. It only produces alterations in the blood 



