258 LECTURE XL 



If all this be the case, there would seem to exist an 

 extremely important series of conditions directly depend- 

 ent upon the dyscrasia. Unfortunately I can myself say 

 but little concerning the matter, inasmuch as I have not 

 since my first case again been in a position to observe 

 anything similar. I cannot therefore form a decided 

 opinion with regard to the value of the relations which 

 have been laid down with respect to the connection of 

 the secondary changes with the contamination of the 

 blood. I only wish to remark that all the facts with 

 which we are acquainted concerning these conditions, in 

 dicate that the contamination of the blood has its rise in 

 a definite organ, and that this organ, as in the case of the 

 colourless blood-corpuscles, is generally the spleen. 



In the course of my description of the blood I have 

 hitherto scarcely made any mention of the changes which 

 take place in the red corpuscles, not by any means be- 

 cause I regarded them as unimportant constituents of 

 that fluid, but because as yet remarkably little is known 

 concerning their changes. The whole history of the red 

 blood-corpuscles is still invested with a mysterious obscu- 

 rity, inasmuch as no positive information has even at the 

 present time been obtained with regard to the origin of 

 these elements. We only know this much with certainty, 

 as I have already (p. 190) had occasion to remark, that 

 a part of the original corpuscular elements of the blood 

 proceed just as directly from the embryonic formative 

 cells of the ovum, as all the other tissues which build 

 themselves up out of them. We know, moreover, 

 that in the first months of the existence even of the 

 human embryo, divisions take place in the cells, 

 whereby an increase in the number of them present in 

 the blood itself is produced. But after this time all is 

 obscure, and this obscurity indeed corresponds pretty 



