The Structure of Colored Blood- Corpuscles. 305 



as is evident from the context, of their descriptions — I beg to 

 call special attention to their observations. 



Hensen ascribed to the corpuscle the possession of protoplasm 

 accumulated at the nucleus and at the inner surface of the 

 membrane ; the two being connected by delicate radiating fila- 

 ments, in the spaces between which the colored cell-liquid 

 lies. 1 



Bottcher, from his observations, "inferred that around the 

 nucleus of the amphibian blood-corpuscles a mass of protoplasm 

 is collected, which radiates in the form of filaments into the 

 homogeneous red substance. * * * * The protoplasm ap- 

 pears sometimes collected uniformly round the nucleus, at other 

 times it is accumulated more to one side of it. It is either pro- 

 vided with only a few processes, or is arranged round the nu- 

 cleus in the shape of an elegant star, whose points extend to the 

 margin of the corpuscle, or else it forms round the nucleus a 

 peculiar lobed figure. Very often it appears beset on one or all 

 sides with fine hair-like processes. Then, again, it may repre- 

 sent a sort of net-work, which either appears separated from 

 the less darkly colored cortical layer and more contracted, or 

 else it throws out into the cortex innumerable very fine radia- 

 ting filaments, so that its processes approach the extreme peri- 

 phery of the blood-corpuscles. In this case, therefore, the 

 whole blood-corpuscle is permeated by a net-work of fine 

 filaments." 2 



According to Kollmann, the membrane encloses a net-work 

 of delicate slightly granular albumen threads. These in their 

 totality constitute the stroma, and in the small spaces between 

 the threads of the stroma lies the haemoglobin. The soft elastic 

 albumen threads are stretched between membrane and nucleus. 

 Only by a certain degree of their tension is the characteristic 

 form of the blood-corpuscle possible. The haemoglobin in the 

 meshes counteracts excessive shortening of the threads." 3 



Fuchs expresses himself similarly as to the net-work of fibers 



(1) " Untersuchungen," I. c, p. 261. 



(2) " On the Minute Structural Relations of the Red Blood-corpuscles ," Quarterly Journal 

 of Microscop. Science, Oct., 1877, pp. 388, 389, 390. 



(3) '■ Bau der rothen Blutkorperchen ;" I. c, p. 482. 



