1870. ] MR. GULLIVER ON THE BLOOD-CORPUSCLES, 97 
experiments relating to these points, save the few valuable but frag- 
mentary ones of that eminent physiologist the late John Davy. In 
short, the relation of animal heat to the size and proportion of the 
red corpuscles of the blood still requires an ample and careful set of 
experiments. From all that is at present known it appears that, 
ceteris paribus, the smaller these corpuscles the greater will be the 
heat of the animal, since a minute subdivision of a given bulk of them 
will afford a corresponding increase of their aggregate surface for the 
transit of oxygen. The comparative smallness of the blood-disks of 
the diminutive species of a family of Mammals and of the class of 
Birds may be a provision against the greater proportionate loss of 
heat in the little members of such family or class. 
Dr. Davy has shown that warm-blooded fishes have a large pro- 
portion of blood and red corpuscles, while that proportion is remark- 
ably less in fishes that are but little warmer than the water in which 
they live. And to this excellent observer we are indebted for precise 
experiments on the increase of the heat in Man when the circulation 
of the blood is hastened through the lungs and body. The warmth 
of the Python during incubation at the Society’s Gardens, as shown 
by the important observations of Dr. Sclater (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, 
p- 365), was probably due to accelerated circulation of the blood, 
and increased chemical action connected therewith, as in a fever. In 
one of his interesting experiments, Dr. Sclater found the temperature 
of the female Python as high as 96°, and of her male mate 76°, 
while the air of their den was only 60°. Such facts, with Dr. Davy’s 
discovery of the regular warmth of certain Fishes, as much invalidate 
Prof. Owen’s distinction of “‘ Heematocrya”’ and ‘‘ Heematotherma,”’ 
as, according to his statement, the air-cavity of the humerus of the 
Pterodactyle ‘breaks down” Cuvier’s distinction of Birds from 
Lizards by the air-passages in the bones. 
Historical Notices.—The records of discovery concerning the 
constituents and properties of the blood make but a sorry chapter in 
its written history, and one, indeed, that had better remained 
unwritten than overwhelmed, as it was, with confusion and injustice. 
In the Introduction and Notes to Hewson’s works, it was part of my 
duty to correct Prof. Owen’s contributions to such mistakes ; and I 
now regret that the common truth of a branch of physiological 
history and my own just claims still require vindication from his 
pretensions and the indiscreet zeal of his friends. 
The early tables of measurements by Prevost, Dumas, or others, 
exemplified the smallness of the blood-disks of Ruminants in those of 
the Sheep, Goat, or other members of the order. And the red 
blood-corpuscles of the Goat were the smallest known before my 
discovery, read at the Med. Chir. Soc. Nov. 26, 1839, of their 
singular minuteness in 7’ragulus ; while my measurements thereof, 
and of the blood-disks of the Camels and several other Ruminants, 
and of the Marsupials, were, as then noted by the Editor, commu- 
nicated to the ‘ Philosophical Magazine’ just three days previously. 
Yet these plain truths are always suppressed by Prof. Owen in order 
to support his own pretensions to the discovery and his amusing 
Pxtoc. Zoo. Soc.—1870, No. VII. 
