The microscopic organisms found in the blood of man and animals, and their relation to disease / by Timothy Richards Lewis.

  • Lewis, T. R. (Timothy Richards), 1841-1886.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microscopic organisms found in the blood of man and animals, and their relation to disease / by Timothy Richards Lewis. 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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    3 are probably few observers in the habit of examining blood who have not at some time or other been puzzled for an explanation of their presence and nature. They are particularly plentiful in the blood of foetal and newly born animals.’ Max Schultze considered that they are derived from the degenerated wliite corpuscles of the blood. Riess is of a like opinion. Osier, however, con- siders them to be organisms in the liquor sanguinis^ basing his opinion on the circumstance that certain changes take place in the masses when a saline solution (I or f per cent.) or fresh serum is added to them, and the preparation kept at a temperatm-e of about 37° C. Along the margins of the masses (wliich A B c Fig. I.—Development of organisms in human blood (Hartnack's Ocular 3, Objective 7). A. A mass from healthy blood at ro a. m. B. Ditto ditto at 10-30 a. m. C. Ditto ditto at II A. m. (After Osier.) previously presented a tolerably even appearance) there gradually appear fine projections ‘ wliich may he either perfectly straight or each may present an oval swelling (fig. 1, B). These projecting filaments soon present a waving motion and finally break off from the mass, moving away free in the fluid, and in a short time the whole area for some distance from the margins is alive with moving forms (fig. 1, C). . . . The variety of forms increases as the development goes on; and whereas, at first, spermatozoon-like or spindle-shaped corpuscles were almost exclusively to be seen, later more irregular forms appear, possessing two, three, or even more, tail-like processes of extreme delicacy. The more active ones wander towards the periphery, pass out of the field, and become lost among the blood-corpuscles. The process reaches its height within 2^ hours, and from this time begins almost imperceptibly to decline; the area about the mass is less densely occupied by the moving forms and by degrees becomes clearer, till at last, after six or seven hours (often less), scarcely an element is to be seen in the field, and a granular body, in which a few corpuscles yet exist,