42 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. [jd Ser., 



the hemoglobin in the red cell had been consumed by the 

 plasmocyte. But this is mere illusion, because the pale ring 

 or area is caused by the pressure of the overlying plasmo- 

 cyte which has pushed the haemoglobin away from its 

 immediate vicinity. Again, wherever phagocytosis occurs 

 no such displacement of the haemoglobin takes place, as 

 illustrated by fig. 79. Even in the plasmocytoblasts such 

 phagocytosis is frequent. I have already mentioned that the 

 enclosures are principally found in the granosphere, which 

 is thus to be considered as the seat of digestive activity in 

 the cell. 



Duplicity of the Plasmocytoblasts. — A very noticeable fact 

 is the frequent occurrence of a plasmocytoblast at each of 

 the opposite poles of the fusiform corpuscle, or rather, 

 more strictly speaking, of the degenerating nucleus. In 

 some instances, even when the granosphere is distinct at 

 each pole, I have not been able to discover the inner spheres 

 and centrosomes; but in the majority of fusiform corpuscles 

 the respective cytoplasmic spheres, with an archosome, are 

 found at each pole. It appears at the beginning of the 

 degeneration and disintegration of the nucleus, or at the 

 moment when the cell membrane was ruptured and the 

 haemoglobin was diffused, that the erythrocyte was not in 

 actual rest, but at the beginning of mitosis. The centro- 

 somes and archoplasm had evidently already separated and 

 moved to opposite poles of the nucleus, where at their rest- 

 ing places they had caused a dell to appear. The destruc- 

 tion of the cell and its transformation into a fusiform 

 corpuscle, is, therefore, not likely to have been caused 

 by any defect in the centrosomal spheres or archosome, 

 but rather from some defect in the nucleus itself. This de- 

 fect, whatever it may have been, prevented the chromosomes 

 from passing through the preliminary stage of mitosis; 

 they were therefore unable to respond to the action of the 

 archosome. The nucleus in which, at this stage, we should 

 expect to find a great activity among the chromosomes had 

 thus died, that is to say it had become disorganized or 

 paralyzed, so that the action of the centrosomes, instead of 



