302 The Structure of Colored Blood-Corpuscles. 



polar or lemon-shaped corpuscles are also very frequently met 

 with in specimens of human blood. The same process is also 

 observed when the margins of two corpuscles actually touch each 

 other very slightly, and then slowly separate again. While sepa- 

 rating, the thorn-like processes will be drawn out at the exact 

 place of contact, and either remain permanent or disappear again 

 after the separation has taken place. 



That the normal heat of the human blood is not essential to 

 the manifestation of spontaneous motion in the colored corpus- 

 cles, I discovered during the past winter, while repeating my 

 examinations of the structure of these bodies. I then witnessed 

 the phenomenon above described, without having warmed the 

 glass slide and covering glass, and at the temperature of a mode- 

 rately warmed room. However, I observed a colored corpuscle 

 of a constricted form, similar to a figure of eight, slowly ex- 

 panding, and finally resuming its original round form. 



From this we may conclude that the colored blood-corpuscle 

 of man possesses not only a certain inherent power of contract- 

 ing its body, but also of resuming its original form by a subse- 

 quent expansion, a characteristic property of the living pro- 

 toplasm, enabling the colored corpuscle to manifest spontaneous 

 motions, though not to so great an extent as is seen in the 

 colorless." 1 



In his "General Conclusions and Summary," Lankester' 1 says, 

 that the viscid mass constituting the red blood-corpuscles of the 

 vertebrata "consists of (or rather yields, since the state of com- 

 bination of the components is not known) a variety of albu- 

 minoid and other bodies, the most easily separable of which is 

 haemoglobin ; secondly, the matter- Avhich segregates to form 

 Kobert's macula ; and thirdly, a residuary stroma apparently 

 homogeneous in the mammalia (excepting so far as the outer 

 surface or pellicle may be of a different chemical nature), but 

 containing in the other vertebrata a sharply definable nucleus ; 

 this nucleus being already differentiated, but not sharply de- 

 lineated during life, and consisting of (or sejiarable into) at 



(1) Op. rit., pp. 113, 114, 115. 



(2) Op. ciL, p. 386. 



