CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE RED CORPUSCLES. 411 



condition, and the spherical form to the state of death. Rollett,* 

 in consequence of his investigations upon the effects produced 

 by electrical discharges on the blood corpuscles, is opposed to 

 the view that they are contractile. He relies upon the facts 

 that we always see the corpuscles in the interior of the vessels 

 of the living animal in a state of merely passive movement ; 

 that blood corpuscles preserved outside the body for many 

 months, or placed in blood destitute of oxygen but impreg- 

 nated with carbonic acid, or in blood impregnated with carbonic 

 oxide, behave themselves, when acted on by electrical shocks, 

 in a manner essentially similar to those that have been recently 

 taken from the living animal. Max Schultzef also, from his 

 experiments on the influence of warmth on the non-nucleated 

 corpuscles of Man and Mammals, arrived at the conclusion that 

 these at least were not contractile; and Kuhne+ expresses him- 

 self in similar terms. 



We arrive here, however, at a point at which it appears ne- 

 cessary to determine what signification must be applied to the 

 term contractility. Briicke, in the treatise above alluded to, 

 justifying himself in speaking of the contraction of the zooid 

 as of a living being, remarks that it would profit us nothing 

 were we to refer the separation of the zooid from the oikoid, 

 not to a contraction of the former, but to a process resembling 

 coagulation, and that -we have no guarantee that we have arrived 

 nearer to the truth. A movement which we may designate 

 by the term contraction certainly occurs ; for the coloured ma- 

 terial unquestionably retreats from all sides towards the nucleus. 

 What may be the causes of this contraction, and whether it 

 may be compared in its essence with the contraction of a dying 

 amoeba, will probably long remain a subject of uncertainty; 

 to the illumination of this darkness we may, however, soon 

 attain. 



OUTLINE OF THE CHEMISTRY OF THE RED CORPUSCLES. 

 The best-known constituent of the red blood corpuscles is hse- 



t Wiener Akad. Eerichte, Band 1., pp. 190200. 



* ArchivfUr Mikroskop. Anatomic, Band i., pp. 33, 31. 



t Physiolog. Chemie. Leipzig, 1866, p. 191. 



G G 



