Dr. Beale, on the Red Blood-corpuscle, 
37 
became cooler,, the material again became firmer. Under these 
circumstances long and very fine threads are^ as it were^ drawn 
out from the red viscid matter^ and these threads exhibited per- 
petual vibratory movements. I have seen them oscillating 
in many different places at the same time, like the minute 
vegetable threads developed in the mouth (leptomitus ?) . Not 
only so, but many exhibit a distinctly beaded appearance; and 
when these thin filaments are detached, they certainly very 
closely resemble bacteria. I have produced precisely similar 
filaments in human blood (fig. 2) . It is very likely that such 
alteration in the matter of which the red blood- corpuscles 
are composed may occur under certain circumstances in the 
organism itself^ and we must be extremely cautious not to mis- 
take such particles^ which would, no doubt, soon be dissolved^ 
for bacteria, Avhich are sometimes developed in blood in the 
living body towards the close of certain fatal maladies. 
The movements above referred to, it need scarcely be said, 
are molecular in their nature^ and are not dependent upon 
any vital properties. They continue until the fluid becomes 
so concentrated by evaporation that no further movements in 
the particles can occur. 
2. If frog^s or other large blood- corpuscles be carefully 
subjected to sudden pressure under very thin glass, as, for 
example, by drawing a needle-point quickly and firmly across 
the thin glass, many corpuscles in the line of the pressure will 
be subdivided into smaller ones. Each of these small por- 
tions instantly assumes the spherical form. There is no ap- 
pearance of a cell-wall being ruptured, nor do the supposed 
fluid contents mix with or become dissolved in the sur- 
rounding fluid. The spherical masses resulting from the sub- 
division of the red blood-corpuscles resemble in colour, shape, 
refractive power, and in sharpness of outline, the original 
corpuscle (PI. VII, fig. 9). These phenomena seem fatal to 
the hypothesis that each corpuscle is composed of a closed 
membrane, with fluid contents. To say that the membrane 
is composed of matter which is itself semifluid, and that, 
even if ruptured at different points, the torn edges reunite, 
involves almost an impossibility; for if a rupture were to 
occur in such a semifluid expansion, the separated portions 
would rather separate further, and the whole would soon col- 
lect together instead of expanding again over portions of its 
contents. 
3. I have many times seen portions of the nucleus of a 
frog's blood- corpuscle pass completely through the coloured 
material, which would seem impossible if this were enclosed 
in a membrane (PI. VIT, figs. 24, 25). Dr. Roberts has 
