On the chemical composition of the nuclei of blood corpuscles / by T. Lauder Brunton.

  • Lauder Brunton
Date:
[1869]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the chemical composition of the nuclei of blood corpuscles / by T. Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    or twelve times its volume of NaCl solution of 3 per cent, is filtered through linen, and the corpuscles allowed to subside in a flat tray. The supernatant fluid is then removed by a syphon, and the corpuscles, thus freed from serum, are either washed repeatedly with much water in the same manner, or after being- allowed to settle in the salt solution for at least twenty-four hours, when they form a kind of film, are scraped together, and washed on a linen filter. In the former case, the nuclei or rather zooids of the blood corpuscles are obtained as a white powder, which sinks very slowly in water; in the latter, as a mass resembling fibrin in appearance. Microscopic examina- tion shows this powder to consist of the nuclei in the form of small round bodies containing several dark granules, sunrounded by a ring of transparent colourless substance, apparently a remnant of stroma, whose breadth is about equal to the diameter of the nucleus, and whose edge is so delicate as to be scarcely perceptible. On the addition of aniline, red or blue, dissolved in dilute alcohol, the nucleus becomes deeply coloured, the stroma slightly so, and its edges much more distinct. Weakly alkaline solutions of carmine and solutions of iodine also colour the nucleus deeply, but the stroma very slightly, or not at all. The nucleus is generally in the middle, but, occasionally, is more or less eccentric, and sometimes sticks quite close to one side of the surrounding substance. This last may possibly be its con- stant situation, and its central one only apparent, and it may thus correspond to the point in mammalian blood corpuscles, which was found by Roberts* and Rindfleisch-f- to become deeply coloured by magenta. If the powder be then shaken with ether and water it forms a layer between the two; and when this is microscopically examined, the nuclei alone are seen, the stroma formerly surrounding them being no longer percep- tible even after the addition of aniline. The nuclei may be got at once by treating the corpuscles with ether, separating the nuclear layer by a stoppered funnel, and then washing in water. Alkalis cause the nuclei to swell, to run together in clumps, * Proceedings of Royal Society, 1863. + Experimental studien uber die Histologie des Blutes.