On the corpuscles of the blood / by Martin Barry. Pts. [I]-III.

  • Martin Barry
Date:
1840-1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the corpuscles of the blood / by Martin Barry. Pts. [I]-III. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    9. The appearance of the globules in question suggests the idea that they may be identical with the so-called “ lymph-granules,” or blood-corpuscles of the “ second form-!-.” hypothesis that the development of smaller vesicles within itself is a normal property of the ordinary coloured vesicle or blood-disc, yet the obscurity which still hangs over the origin and reproduction of the blood-discs, and the unexpected constancy of the granulated form in a greater or less proportion of them, while recent, and floating in the serum, in the different species examined, makes me unwilling to suppress an idea, naturally arising out of such observations, and likely to be suggestive of examination of the same appearance by other microscopical observers.” At the time of recording the above observations, I was not aware that such an idea had been published. I shall be glad if those observations are such as to confirm it. There is one fact men- tioned by Owen which I think particularly deserving of attention here. In describing the blood of a cold-blooded animal—the Monitoi—he remarks, “ many of the discs had the marginal contour slightly crenate, with lines converging to the nucleus.”—The appearance of the blood-disc when undergoing the changes which we have seen to terminate in a separation into globules, seems to have been noticed by several observers ; among whom may be mentioned Hew'son and Falconar, and more recently Hodgkin and Lister. It is not easy, indeed, to understand how the sharp-sighted Leeuw'enhoek should have suspected the “globules” of the blood to be made of six lesser globules, unless he bad seen some of the appearances in question. Some late remarks by Gulliver, to whom we are indebted for a vast number of observations on the size of the blood- discs in different animals, show that this gentleman had long been in the habit of observing these appearances, and that he deemed them of importance, He mentions having observed the “ granulated particles in great numbers, both in their serum and in a dry state***in blood examined immediately after it was obtained from the veins of various animals, particularly young kittens. The nature of these particles,” he continues, is worthy of further and special inquiry. They are to be found plentifully during digestion; but, in their deep red colour and chemical properties, they differ remarkably from the granules observed in the chyle ” (Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. Jan. 1840.). The same author subsequently remarks, “ The granulated particles are almost uniformly smaller than the common discs, and it is not improbable iliat some of the former may be produced by the irregular shrinking of the latter. In some instances I could not detect any of the granulated corpuscles in the blood immediately after it was taken from the animal, although they were to be seen abundantly after a few hours exposure in the serum to the atmosphere, the temperature ranging between 45° and 50°. In one obser- vation some of the extremely minute spherules which are not uncommon in the blood, were observed to attach themselves to a few of the smaller discs, so as to produce the granulated appearance” (Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. Feb. 1840, p. 107.). It would thus seem, however, that the idea of a division of the blood-disc had not occurred to the author now quoted. t On the subject of these “lymph-granules” or corpuscles of the “second form,” many valuable observa- tions have been communicated by R. Wagner, from whose work—Beitrage zur vergleichenden Physiologie, Heft II. 1838,—I make the following extracts, in which will be found remarks that appear to me to be favor- able to the suggestion above offered, on the possible identity of the globules into which the blood-corpuscle divides, with corpuscles of the “ second form.” “ In the blood of Birds, Amphibia, and Fishes, there is present in greater or less quantity a second form of corpuscles, which at first sight maybe distinguished from the real blood-corpuscles, and to which the attention of physiologists was recently directed by Johann Muller. (Burdach’s Physiologie, iv. S. 108.) [As Dr. Balt very properly remarks, Hewson probably saw the same objects, considering them the nuclei of the blood-discs. (Experimental Inquiries, &c. Part III. p. 133.) Hodgkin and Lister appear also to have seen them, (l. c., p. 437.)] They have since been seen and closely investigated by many observers, and I long ago considered them at length. (Hecker’s Literarische Annalen, 1834, Februarheft.) On the universal presence, the relative quan- tity, and the size of these granules, we have not yet any complete investigations.***In the arterial blood of a