SCIENTIFIC PROCEEDINGS 



Abstracts of Communications. 

 Eighty-second meeting. 



Presbyterian Hospital, March 21, 1917. 

 President Gies in the chair. 

 66 (1244) 



Some observations concerning chicken bone marrow in living 



cultures. 



By Rhoda Erdmann. 



[Osborn Zoological Laboratory, Yale University and Rockefeller 

 Institute, Princeton.] 



Tower and Herm 1 presented recently before the Society for 

 Experimental Biology and Medicine some ideas concerning the 

 origin of the mammalian (cat) and avian (chicken) blood cells. 

 These authors were led by their observations on bone marrow in 

 living cultures to the following conclusions: 



1. The mammalian red blood corpuscle is a nuclear bud which escapes into the 

 circulation as the true red cell. 



2. The mammalian normoblast and the red corpuscle of the bird are the product 

 of intranuclear activity and are phylogenetically identical. 



3. Phagocytosis of red cells by the giant cells (megakaryocytes) in normal 

 blood-forming tissues is by no means common. The true process is undoubtedly 

 the manufacture of red cells and not the destruction of them. 



My own observation of chicken bone marrow in living cultures 

 led to some conclusions which are not in harmony with the quoted 

 statement. I studied the bone marrow of chicken; therefore, 

 my remarks are based only on observations on the bone marrow 

 cells of this animal. 



1 Tower and Herm, 1916, Proceedings of the Society of Experimental 

 Biology and Medicine, 191 7, Vol. XIV, pp. 61-52. 



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