The Structure of Colored Blood-Corpuscles. 299 



He observed active form-changes of red corpuscles in extravasa- 

 ted amphibian blood, examined in the moist chamber, which 

 led him to the conclusion that "the substance of these corpuscles 

 consists of dissolved coloring matter and a colorless material 

 (protoplasma) which, both when still in connection with the 

 coloring matter and when free from this, shows under certain 

 circumstances phenomena of contractility similar to those ob- 

 served in many lower organisms. " He adds, " As a rule it evinces 

 no contractility, and constitutes, as modified protoplasm, the 

 stroma of amphibian blood-corpuscles." 1 Max Schultze, who 

 denied the contractility of red blood-corpuscles of man and 

 mammals, (although when subjected to a very high temperature 

 — 50 to 52° C, nearly enough to kill them — he saw protrusions 

 and detachments of portions,) admitted that the red blood-cor- 

 imscles of very young chicken-embryos are contractile. 1 ' Fried- 

 reich 3 observed in an enfeebled anaemic patient p olymorphous 

 red blood-corpuscles with active though very slow form-changes, 

 which he could not but interpret as the result of contractilit}^ 

 In the post-mortem blood of a woman who had been leucaemic he 

 saw similar polymorphous corpuscles ; and in a case of albumin- 

 ous urine he repeatedly observed colored blood-corpuscles from 

 which minute portions became constricted and separated, as well 

 as such which exhibited amoeboid protrusion and retraction of 

 short blunt projections, whereby a slow locomotion of the cor- 

 puscle was accomplished. He assumed that the contractility 

 which the colorless corpuscles ' possess in so high a degree is pre- 

 served in undiminished strength in the red corpuscles in certain 

 pathological cases. According to Charlton Bastian," red blood- 

 corpuscles leave under certain circumstances the vessels by virtue 

 of active amoeboid movements ; and he thinks it would be well 

 if "the attention of future observers should be directed to these 

 peculiarities, and to the particulars above mentioned, in order 



(.1) Ibid, p 440. 



(2) Verhandlungen der Niederrheinisehen Gesellschaft fur Natur und Heilkunde in Bcmn, 

 am 8 Juni, 1864: Berliner Klinische Wccheuschrift, 1864 No 36, p. 358. 



(3) •■ Ein Beitragzur Leben^geschichte der rothen Biutkorperchen ;" Virchow's Archiv, vol. 

 41 (1867), p. 395. 



(4) " Passage of the Red Blood-corpuscles through the walls of the Capillaries in Mechanical 

 Congestion." British Medical Journal May 2, 1868 pp. 425. 426. 



