This paper is divided into three parts: the first relating to the blood-corpuscles of the Vertebrata ; the second to those of the In-vertebrata ; and the last to a comparison between the two. He first describes the microscopic appearances of these corpuscles in different classes of vertebrate animals, beginning with the skate and the frog, and proceeding to birds and mammifera; first in their early embryonic state, and next in the subsequent periods of their growth. He finds in oviparous vertebrata generally, four principal forms of corpuscles. These he distinguishes as the phases, first of the
granule blood-cell
, which he describes as a cell filled with granules, disclosing by the solvent action of dilute acetic acid on these granules a vesicular, or as the author terms it, a “
cellœform
” nucleus. These granule cells appear under two stages of development, namely, the coarsely granulous stage and the finely granulous stage. The second phase is that of the
nucleolated blood-cell
, oval in shape, containing a vesicular (or “cellæform”) nucleus, and red-coloured matter. These cells likewise appear under two stages of development; colourless in the first and coloured in the second, in which last stage it constitutes the
red corpuscle.
In the early mammiferous embryo, he finds, in addition to the former, a third phase, that of
free vesicular
nucleus
, exhibiting, like the nucleolated cell, the colourless and the coloured stages. On examining the corpuscles of the lymph of vertebrate animals, the author finds them in all the classes to be identical in structure with their blood-corpuscles, and differing only in the inferior degree of coloration attending their last stage. In the oviparous classes, he observes that the nucleolated are more numerous than the granule cells, while in the mammifera the latter are predominant, which is the reverse of the proportion in which they exist in the blood of these animals. He finds that some of the nucleolated cells of the contents of the thoracic duct exhibit a marked degree of coloration, and have an oval shape; thus offering a resemblance to the blood of the early embryonic state.
Contrasted responses to carbohydrate limitation in tomato fruit at two stages of development
