854 
Proceedings of the Eoyal Society 
tion were in reality more rapid than in rabbits, in one case the 
normal being reached on the sixth, in the other on the eighth day. 
The quantities of blood injected were, however, relatively very small. 
The results of these experiments go to support the view previ- 
ously expressed, that the duration of life of transfused corpuscles 
is dependent more on the activity of the blood-destroying organs, 
than on the vitality of the blood corpuscles themselves. An excess 
of blood corpuscles is not tolerated by the organism for any length 
of time. Hence it is more natural to assume that the period 
required for the destruction of the injected corpuscles is shorter 
than that of the normal duration of life of the red corpuscles, 
than to assume the reverse, viz., that transfused corpuscles are 
capable of living longer in the circulation than the animal’s own 
blood corpuscles. 
Such are the results obtainable by transfusion without foregoing 
depletion. Although, as already indicated, they are more to be 
relied on than those obtained by transfusion after depletion, some 
very interesting results are still obtainable by the latter method. 
Attention has not before been drawn to these in this connection. 
Yon Ott found in experiments on dogs, that after injection of an 
equal quantity of f per cent, common salt solution in place of the 
blood previously withdrawn ( \ to § of its total quantity), the number 
of red corpuscles remaining in the blood reached their minimum, not 
on the day of injection, but two or three days later; and from this 
time onwards a steady and continuous rise took place, reaching the 
normal from the 16th to the 24th day after the operation. 
If blood serum instead of salt solution were injected, the result 
was the same, viz., the normal was reached in from 17 to 24 days. 
In other words, the blood behaved as if no fluid at all had been 
injected; for Hunerfauth had previously shown that under such 
circumstances, viz., after simple loss of blood, the return to the 
normal was not complete till the 19th to the 23rd day, and Lyon 
had similarly found that the time required varied from 19 to 25 days. 
The time required, therefore, for the Mood to return to the normal 
after Meeding , viz., 
16-24 days (Yon Ott), 
19-23 days (Hunerfauth), 
19-25 days (Lyon), — 
