PART I.] Persistence of Amoeboid Bodies in Cholera Blood. 75 



B.— Results of microscopic examinations of the blood in health and in diseases 



other than cholera. 



As might be supposed, these systematic observations on the blood in cholera 

 were not commenced without our having, as we thought, made ourselves practically 

 conversant with all the changes discernible in normal blood ; indeed, on referring to 

 our notes, we find that daily, and in several cases hourly, observations had been 

 entered relative to about three dozen specimens examined in precisely the same manner 

 as the foregoing, but in none of them is there any allusion to the phenomena just 

 described. Whereas in the written description of the second case of the cholera-blood 

 series, we find it entered on the fourth day that "the serous portion of the specimen 

 is crowded with granular, white corpuscles, extremely like pus-cells/' Then follow 

 careful notes of between sixty and seventy specimens in which the various stages 

 above summarised are minutely described. 



Thinking that it might by no means be impossible that similar changes might 

 have been overlooked in the normal blood series, we determined to go over this 

 ground again, and found this to have been the case, to a certain extent at all events, 

 in some samples of blood. Still even in these exceptional cases the difference is so 

 marked that we almost venture to state that, given two samples of blood, one being 

 choleraic and the other healthy, although to the naked eye, or at first sight under 

 the microscope, no difference might be discerned, we could pretty accurately state on 

 the second day to which of the two sources the specimens should be referred. 



Similar amoeboid corpuscles may very readily be detected creeping out of the 

 blood clot in this climate without any special artificial arrangements being adopted to 

 raise the temperature even in healthy blood; but in no single case have we hitherto 

 seen them appear in anything like the same proportion as in the blood obtained 

 from patients suffering from cholera, where not infrequently little white spots about 

 the size of a millet-seed may be seen with the naked eye, which, when placed under 

 the microscope, will be found to correspond with aggregations of these pus-like cor- 

 puscles. Added to this the corpuscles appear to be smaller and to disintegrate much 

 more readily in normal blood; so much so that in the course of about twenty-four 

 hours nothing special is to be observed, merely the usual proportion of white cells, 

 with possibly some aggregations of molecules and a few hyaline cells, regarding the 

 origin of which no conjecture could have been arrived at, had the earlier changes 

 undergone by the preparation not been carefully watched ; whereas in cholera these 

 amoeboid bodies, after they have become spherical, may, as has already been intimated, 

 persist for several days without any marked change. 



Whether this persistency be owing to the increased density of the blood in cholera, 

 or to the character of the bodies referred to, we are not in a position to state ; nor would 

 we for a moment wish it to be inferred that any specific character can be attributed 



