561 



Presents. 



[May 25, 



this case the film is brought to a focus upon the body, and not at a slight 

 distance from it ; so that either or both these modes might obtain with the 

 corpuscle. In some cases the streak of solution is absent. The method 

 of sealing, which leaves behind a portion of the film, is probably a necessity 

 of every case of repair of continuity, with the exception of that of trans- 

 mission of a foreign body through a film. 



In the case of the blood-corpuscle it would not appear that the capillary 

 wall became applied over the surface of the corpuscle to any great extent, 

 but that, having effected cohesion, it becomes easier for the capillary wall 

 to give way and glide over the corpuscle than to be distended by it ; and 

 this is effected much slower than in the case of the factitious examples 

 which I have placed before you. For capillarity to come into play, the 

 presence on the exterior of the corpuscle of another and cohesively dissi- 

 milar liquid to the liquor sanguinis is required ; and this we obtain by the 

 outward passage, under the influence of osmosis, of the content-matter 

 (haemoglobin) of the corpuscle ; a magnified view of the relations present 

 may be thus represented : — 



Capillary wall. 



Plasma. 



Tensional surface of 

 content-matter. 



Corpuscle wall. 



We may conclude in the appropriate words of Herbert Spencer : — 

 " We have in these colloids, of which organisms are mainly composed, just 

 the required compromise between fluidity and solidity ; they cannot be re- 

 duced to the unduly mobile conditions of liquid and gas, and yet they do 

 not assume the unduly fixed condition usually characterizing solids ; the 

 absence of power to unite together in polar arrangement leaves their atoms 

 with a certain freedom of relative movement, which makes them sensitive to 

 small forces, and produces plasticity in the aggregates composed of them." — 

 Principles of Biology, p. 23. 



The Society adjourned over the Long Vacation to Thursday, November 

 16th. 



Presents received May 25, 1871. 



Transactions. 



Bremen: — Naturwissenschaftliche Vereine. Abhandlungen. Band II. 

 Heft 3. 8vo. Bremen 1871. The Society. 



Frankfurt a. M. : — Senckenbergischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft. 

 Abhandlungen. BandYII. Heft3,4. 4to. Frankfurt 1870. Bericht 

 1869-70. 8vo. Frankfurt 1870. The Society. 



Jena : — Medicinisch-naturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft. JenaischeZeit- 



