148 THE BLOOD. 



enquirers, rolls in the outer, and, in the frog's web and bat's 

 wing, at least, the whole particle is carried, steadily balanced, 

 in the current of blood, sometimes flat, sometimes oblique, 

 sometimes gently turning upon itself, and lengthening if driven 

 into a vessel of diameter hardly sufficient for its admission ; the 

 old assertion of Reichel <i being thus corroborated. Kalk, Tre- 

 viranus, and others have noticed a rotatory motion of the entire 

 particles, each at a distance from the other; and Professor 

 Schultz of Berlin has confirmed their observations. But M. Raspail 

 considers these motions as accidental and mechanical results, such 

 as have deceived so many microscopic investigators. Mr. Bauer 

 says he has discovered a third set of smaller colourless glo- 

 bules in the blood, ^Q-Q of an inch in diameter, which appear 

 to belong to the fibrin, and are accordingly denominated lymph 

 globules; and it is thought probable that the central globule of 

 the red particles is the same, and thus really fibrin. Colourless 

 globules gradually form also in serum. r The globules of pus 

 also are asserted to form gradually, and it to be originally an 

 homogeneous fluid. 



The globules of the blood, independent of their covering of 

 red substance, M. Raspail regards as mere particles of albumen 

 not dissolved in the serum, and, after proving their albuminous 

 nature, shows how albumen dissolved in an excess of con- 

 centrated hydrochloric acid forms minute, spherical, equal glo- 

 bules, in proportion as the decanted acid spontaneously evapor- 

 ates, scarcely distinguishable from the globules of the blood. 

 One takes breath while reading M. Raspail, after the strange 

 and varying statements of so many experimenters, especially of 

 those who use microscopes, 



putrefaction, makes the vesicles globular, and that farther putrefaction breaks them 

 down. The effects of dilution with water are, according to Raspail, extension, 

 sometimes spherical, sometimes elliptic, and at length complete solution. 



* G. Chr. Reichel, De sanguine ejusque tnotu experimenta. Lips. 1767. 

 p. 27. fig. 3. g. g. 



r Phil. Trans. 1819. p. 2. sq. The globules of milk, healthy pus, and chyle, 

 in different animals, are said by Prevost and Dumas to be of the same form and 

 dimensions : and likewise those of the muscular fibre, and of albumen, when co- 

 agulated, for particles, we are told, are not previously seen in it. But Dr. Hodg- 

 kin finds the particles of pus to be quite irregular in size and figure, and those of 

 milk, though globules, to be some twice, some only one tenth, the size of the par- 

 ticles of the blood. Phil Mag. Aug. 1827, and translation of Dr. Edward's 

 work. I shall refer to M. Raspail in the proper place. 



