92 PROF. GULLIVER ON THE RED CORPUSCLES [Feb. 25, 



the colour resides ; and this matter, which forms the chief bulk of 

 the corpuscle, is very soluble in water, while the membranous part 

 is insoluble in water. The corpuscle is slippery, soft, elastic, and 

 viscid ; it will assume a variety of forms, and quickly return to its 

 regular shape ; and the corpuscles will stick together, not only in 

 the well-known piles, but also by their edges. Dr. Hodgkin and 

 Mr. Lister noticed the viscidity of the part of the corpuscles which 

 had been ruptured by pressure ; but Dr. Davy first clearly described 

 the general viscidity of the entire corpuscles, which has been con- 

 firmed by the recent observations of Dr. Charles Robin, who appears 

 to have been unacquainted with the observations just mentioned, so 

 long before made in this country. I have observed that this viscidity 

 of the corpuscles is much increased in bufFy blood. 



The regular corpuscle has no nucleus — nothing at all like that so 

 plain in the corpuscle of oviparous Vertebrata. Even the oval cor- 

 puscle of Caraelidse has the true Mammalian type, both in size and 

 structure, being of the small size usual to Ruminantia, and alike de- 

 stitute of a nucleus ; so that it is in shape only that these corpuscles 

 resemble those of the inferior classes, as proved by me long since in the 

 papers cited below. And as the history of what, in 1 845, Mr. Whar- 

 ton Jones appropriately called "this vexed question of a nucleus" is 

 interesting and important in physiological literature, and seems never 

 to have been clearly known, we may dwell a little on the subject. 



The mistake of describing a nucleus in the red corpuscle of Mam- 

 malia arose from its central spot, and from the observers having seen 

 the nucleus so plainly in the larger corpuscles of fishes and reptiles. 

 Thus Ilewson, using the corpuscles of the Skate to ascertain their 

 structure, never entertained a doubt that the nucleus he saw so plainly 

 — " like a pea in a bladder" — in the red corpuscle of that fish was 

 a true representative of a nucleus in the human blood-corpuscle, and, 

 indeed, that what was true of the structure of the one was equally so 

 of the other. 



And this error, in one shape or other, prevailed up to our time, 

 and was quite general about the year 1839, when I was always en- 

 deavouring to correct it (see Med. Ch. Trans, vol. xxiii. ; Lancet, 

 1840-41, p. 101 ; and my App. to Gerber's Anatomy, p. 13); while 

 Miiller, Krause, Gerber, and others, following Prevost and Dumas and 

 Prof. Milne-Edwards on the Continent, had satisfied themselves of 

 the existence of a nucleus in the human blood-corpuscle ; and the late 

 Dr. Martin Barry was publishing engravings in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions,' in London, of what he regarded as positive proofs of 

 this so-called nucleus. But it must be recollected that in 1827 

 Dr. Hodgkin and Mr. Lister made the following statement : — " Our 

 observations are at variance with the opinion long since formed by 

 Hewson, that these particles consisted of a central globule inclosed in 

 a vesicle composed of the coloured part; and which, though refuted by 

 Dr. Young, has since in a modified form been revived by Sir Everard 

 Home and Bauer in this country, and by Prevost and Dumas on the 

 Continent." This conclusion of Dr. Hodgkin and Mr. Lister refers 

 to their examination of the human blood-corpuscles ; and most in- 



