Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A text book of physiology / by William Rutherford. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Previous to the pigment extravasation, the nucleus often swells (d), but in other cases it undergoes no change in size. This singular reaction may also be vrell seen in the human coi-puscles (Fig. 22, d), where it often happens that each bud is enclosed in a delicate vesicular envelope that rapidly enlarges and may finally rupture from endosmosis. This hood to the bud is sometimes also seen in the newt's corpuscle (Fig. 21, a). A somewhat similar reaction is produced by a two per cent solution of boracic acid (Briicke, 40, vol. Ixvi. p. 79). When mageuta solution is added to tlie newt's corpuscles, after these buds have appeared under the iuHuence of tannin, the buds become brilliantly stained. The same thing happens to the buds of the non-nucleated human corpuscle, and the change is very singular ; for previous to the addition of tannin, the perinuclear substance of the newt's corpuscles is not stained by magenta. Dr. Hoberts iOj). cit.) suggests that possibly the red blood-corpuscle has a double enveloj)e, and that its contents may ru])tuve only the inner one, while the outer of tlie two swells up and forms the hood over the bud. That a membrane is ruptured cannot be doubted, but whether the hood of the bud is a part of an outer membrane must be regarded as extremely doubtful, for it remains so adherent to the periphery of the bud. A saturated solution of common salt or sugar causes the red corpuscles of both newt and man to become puckered from exosmose. Desiccation has a similar effect. AVhen thus infiuenced, the corpuscles become crenated (Fig. 22, c), or spinous, like ahorse-chestnut (J). Seen endwise, the spinous projections have the appearance of granules. In some cases, how- ever, crenation cannot be so easily explained, for it is regularly produced in some animals, Fig. 22. nunmu red blood-cor- g.jf. in the dog, in poisouing by Calabar bean in.scies variouHiy altered: a, by /pp^ser): and in this case it seems difficult, if water; b, c, by sliort exposure to \ ■ ^^ ^ , m -i. j. i c thonir; rf. e, by t<umic acid;/, by not impossible, tO aSCHOe it tO a Change Ot Mingenta. x 1000. Specific gravity, either outside or inside the corpuscles. Shocks of induced electricity may also render them spinous. Mechankal iwessure can greatly distort and even rupture the corpuscles. The fact that no shreds of their envelopes are afterwards discernible has been adduced as an argument against the existence of such a membrane. But if, as already stated, the membrane be of a colloid nature, this cir- cumstance would be explained. The completeness with which the cor- puscles recover their shape, when relieved from the distorting influence of pressure, not too severe, seems only explicable by supposing not merely that the envelope is elastic, but also that there is an elastic _ strovm stretching from its interior throughout the corpuscle. It is particularly necessary to entertain this idea in the case of the non-nucleated red corpuscle, because of the persistence with which it recovers its shape after distortion. These various reactions clearly show that the mammalian corpuscle behaves like the perinuclear part, and not like the nucleus of the nucleated corpuscle. Actions ofoiUr Eeagents.—ma and salts of the bile acids (Kuhne), ether (AVittich), chloroform (Bbttcher), and alkalies dissolve the red corpuscles and liberate their pigment. Strieker (Op. 38, i. p. 404) has shown that when the newt's corpuscles have been slightly affected by water, a stream of COj occasions a precipitate within them winch disappears](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21981747_0072.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
