Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The practice of medicine / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
45/1216 (page 35)
![Diagnosis.—If we examine the blood of a patient affected with the symptoms just described, no mistake can be made with regard to the nature of the disease. On placing an ounce or two of leucocythemic blood, which has been freed from fibrin, in a narrow glass, the red cor- puscles sink to the bottom, while the upper part of the mass looks like milk. This latter appearance is due to the colorless corpuscles ; and it may be distinguished from that caused by fat, owing to the circumstance that it is not removed by ether. In extreme cases portions of the blood resemble pus. On looking at the blood microscopically, under a magnifying power of 250 diameters, the yellow and colorless corpuscles are at first seen roll- ing together; the excess in the number of the latter being at once recog- nizable, and becoming more evident as the colored bodies get aggregated together, in rolls leaving clear spaces between them filled with the color- less ones. A drop of blood taken from a prick in the finger is sufficient for examination. The results of chemical analysis on nine occasions recorded by Dr. Hughes Bennett, show an excess of fibrin and a diminu- tion of blood corpuscles. Prognosis.—This is alwa}^ unfavorable. The marasmus \_Mapaivio = to grow lean] generally increases steadily. All that can really be clone is to try and put off the fatal termination : in this attempt we may be suc- cessful for one or two years. Pathology.—In health the ratio of colorless to red corpuscles is about 1 : 3T3 (Donders and Moleschott); whereas in the disease under consid- eration they often stand to the red corpuscles in the high proportion of 1 : 3. According to many physiologists the reel corpuscles are formed from the colorless ones by the direct transformation of the latter into the former. From numerous observations, however, Dr. Bennett believes with Wharton Jones that the colored disc is merely the liberated nucleus of the colorless cell. The opinion, first pronmlgated by Hewson, that the blood corpuscles were derived from the lymphatic glands, has been gener- ally rejected. But after a careful consideration of the subject, Dr. Hughes Bennett confirms this view. The conclusions this gentleman has drawn, after much laborious research, are these : 1. That the blood coi^puscles of vertebrate animals are originally formed in the lymphatic glandular system, and that the great majority of them, on joining the circulation, become colored in a manner that is as yet unexplained. Hence the blood corpuscles may be considered as a secretion from the lymphatic glands, although in the higher animals that secretion only becomes fully formed after it has received color by exposure to oxygen in the lungs. 2. That in mammalia the lymphatic glandular system is composed of the spleen, thymus, thyroid, supra-renal, pituitary, pineal, and lymphatic glands. 3. That in fishes, reptiles, and birds, the colored blood corpuscles are nu- cleated cells, originating in these glands; but that, in mammals they are free nuclei, sometimes derived as such from the glands, at others devel- oped within colorless cells. 4. That in certain hypertrophies of the lymphatic glands in man, their cell elements are multiplied to an unusual extent, and under such circumstances find their way into the blood, and constitute an increase in the number of its colorless cells. A corres-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21079961_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
