54 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



which is enclosed and, as it were, combined with the tissue 

 of this organ, one finds in it a composition well worthy of 

 fixing the attention. In a word, this blood is so rich in 

 white globules, that their number approaches nearly to that 

 of the perfect blood globules ; but, further, the white globules 

 which are there, present in as evident a manner all the de- 

 grees of formation and development, and the examination of 

 this blood does not appear to me to leave any doubt upon 

 the transition which I have pointed out above of white glo- 

 bules to red corpuscles, and upon the successive phases through 

 which the white globules pass to arrive at the state of perfect 

 blood globules. This phenomenon is, above all, striking after 

 injections of milk, and during the work which is accomplished 

 in the space of four and twenty hours, of the transformation 

 of the immense quantity of milk globules into blood globules. 

 One cannot believe that this is not really the point 

 the laboratory, if one may so speak in which this trans- 

 mutation is effected, and that the spleen is not the true 

 organ of this important function. But I know how like 

 facts, and how the theory which results from them, have 

 need to be confirmed by the researches of other observers, to 

 be definitively adopted with confidence."* 



In answer to these observations of M. Donne I would 

 remark, first, that I have never seen the different stages of 

 formation of the white corpuscles, and of transformation of 

 these into red, described by M. Donne, and, second, that I 

 believe that he has totally misinterpreted the appearances 

 presented by blood pressed out of the spleen. The cells or 

 corpuscles of which that organ is itself constituted so closely 

 resemble the white globules of the blood, that I feel assured 

 that M. Donne has failed to discriminate between the two, 

 and that many of his progressive stages of development are 

 to be referred to the splenic cells or corpuscles, numbers of 

 which are always contained in every drop of blood procured 

 from the spleen. 



Having now noticed the various opinions held by different 



* Cours de Microscopie, pp. 99, 100. 



