106 Mr. Gulliver's Observations on the Blood Corpuscles 



or the alteration of form in the disks, may generally be ob- 

 served even in the course of a minute or two after the mix- 

 ture. Nor is the serum of one animal always proper to di- 

 lute the blood of another; for I could seldom get the cor- 

 puscles of the carnivora, or even of some ruminants, to mix 

 well with the serum of the horse. 



If obtained from the body a day or two after death, the 

 disks are generally so clustered together as to be seen very 

 indefinitely in the wet state, although some of the smallest 

 detached from the masses are often tolerably distinct. The 

 corpuscles are mostly very irregular in size, approaching 

 more to the spherical shape, and even more susceptible of 

 alteration from any of the common methods of dilution, than 

 in blood procured from the living animal. By drying, how- 

 ever, a tolerably clear outline of the disks from the carcass 

 may in most instances be procured, although every method 

 sometimes fails, as I experienced a short time since in some 

 blood from the Sloth Bear and from the Malay Sun Bear. 

 Though the bodies of these animals were perfectly fresh, and 

 the masses of fibrine in the heart and great vessels firmly 

 coagulated, the particles of the blood were so much con- 

 glomerated, and their size so singularly variable, that it was 

 impossible either by drying or any method of dilution to ob- 

 tain even an approximation to their average diameter; and 

 yet some corpuscles procured from the living Sloth Bear did 

 not exhibit such irregularities. 



Of the accidental circumstances by which the particles are 

 liable to become enlarged, besides incipient putrefaction, the 

 moisture of the atmosphere, of the breath, or of the hand are the 

 most frequent. Dried or drying specimens are thus instantly 

 injured or destroyed, the disks being more or less altered in 

 shape and deprived of their colouring matter. But much de- 

 pends on the degree in which these causes may have acted; 

 for a diminution in the magnitude of the corpuscles may be 

 the consequence. If, for example, some water be mixed with 

 blood, the disks immediately become much enlarged and 

 spherical, quickly losing their colouring matter; and yet 

 if the whole of this be thus removed, after a while the outlines 

 of the disks, very faint indeed, may frequently be recognised, 

 diminished considerably in diameter and apparently quite flat. 

 They may always be clearly seen by treating them with a 

 strong solution of corrosive sublimate. The human blood 

 corpuscles, thus enlarged at first, and then deprived of their 

 colouring matter, and reduced in size, generally present a dia- 

 meter of about 1 -4800th of an inch, whether detected in the 

 pure water or rendered more apparent by the sublimate. 



