38 
Dr. Beale^ on the Red Blood-corpuscle, 
also observed this fact. He says^ " I have on several occasions 
witnessed, after adding magenta, the total extrusion of the 
nucleus, both in the frog and in the newt, without the least 
collapse of the corpuscles'^ 
4. But I will now bring forward another fact, which seems 
to me not only to settle the question of cell-wall most con- 
clusively, but determines the nature of the material of which 
the red blood-corpuscle is made up, and bears in a most impor- 
tant manner upon the mode of formation of these bodies. 
If a drop of Guinea-pig's blood obtained from a living animal 
be placed upon a glass slide, and covered with thin glass, it 
will often be observed that within an hour after it has been 
drawn a striking change will occur in the corpuscles. Many 
corpuscles exhibit sharp angles, and in a short time crystalliza- 
tion commences (H. VI, fig. 4). 
In figs. 5 and 6 some blood-corpuscles are represented which 
were seen breaking up into very small rounded portions. After 
a few minutes these small particles were seen to change their 
form and become angular, and gradually very minute, but most 
distinct tetrahedral, crystals were produced. Thus the co- 
loured material of which a single blood-corpuscle was com- 
posed gave rise to several distinct tetrahedral crystals. The 
crystals did not seem to have been precipitated from any fluid 
contents of the corpuscle, nor was there any indication what- 
ever of a cell- wall remaining. The whole of the soft, red, viscid 
matter of which the blood- corpuscle was composed became 
crystalline. In many instances a corpuscle would become 
very angular ; sometimes exactly four angular projections 
were formed, and sometimes eight, but in most cases the 
number was irregular. After the formation of several angular 
projections an entire corpuscle became gradually converted 
into a single crystal. I have also seen a double tetrahedron 
result from one blood-corpuscle. In other instances several 
blood-corpuscles ran together to form one large crystal (figs. 4, 
5,6,7). 
The appearance above described as occurring in some of the 
corpuscles of Guinea-pig^s blood would appear to aflbrd some 
explanation of the change which, so commonly occurs in red 
blood-corpuscles generally, very soon after they have been 
removed from the living body. As is well known, many ex- 
hibit a number of very sharp-pointed processes, springing from 
every part of the surface of the corpuscles. It must, however, 
be noticed as a fact, that by no means do all the blood-corpus- 
cles exhibit these numerous angular projections, and that in 
some of the smallest they are formed most quickly and are 
iftost numerous. I have seen them in the case of small par- 
