308 The Structure of Colored Blood- Corpuscles. 



is present also in the nuclei of the red blood-corpuscles, though 

 he did not see it there. 1 



Speaking of some capillary blood-vessels of a newt, Klein said: 

 "Some such capillaries contained blood-corpuscles, and the nu- 

 clei of these showed a very distinct net-work." 2 Also, "The 

 examination of the nuclei of fresh epithelium of frog, toad or 

 newt, -the nuclei of fresh colored corpuscles of these animals, 

 especially of toad, with a Zeiss's F Lens, or a Hartnack's Immer- 

 sion, No. 10, reveals fibrils in the nucleus, and also shows that 

 the 'granules' are due to the twisted or bent condition of 

 them." 3 



III. 



The method employed in my investigation, viz. : treatment of 

 fresh blood with solution of bichromate of potash, and examina- 

 tion with high magnifying power, has revealed certain appear- 

 ances as the structural arrangements of colored blood-corpuscles. 

 Do these arrangements exist in the living corpuscle, or are they 

 artificial productions of the reagent ? 



Dilute solutions of bichromate of potash and Midler's fluid are 

 known as the best preserving media for the most delicate animal 

 structures : Nervous tissue, the eye, embryos, etc., are kept in 

 them unchanged for any length of time. In the fecundated 

 chicken-egg of only twenty hours, placed in such a solution, the 

 heart, but just formed, has been known to continue for a time 

 to beat. Eollett has investigated the influence of bichromate of 

 potash on "protoplasm," and found that no alterations were pro- 

 duced. In my series of observations, the weakest solutions (lO^er 

 cent, saturated solution or less) produced no paling of the colored 

 corpuscles ; while, on increasing the strength up to a certain 

 point, paling occurred in an increasing degree, and a morpho- 

 logical structure became visible at the same time that the mani- 

 festations of life (contraction and amoeboid movement) continued. 



(1) " Beobachtungen liber die Beschaffenheit des Zellkernes." Archiv fur Mikroskopische 

 Anatomie, vol. XIII (1876), p. 693, et seq. 



(2) " Observations on the Structure of Cells and Nuclei." Quarterly Journal of Microsco- 

 pical Science, July, 1878, p. 837. 



(3) Ibid. p. 332. 



