Action of anaesthetics on the blood corpuscles / by J.H. McQuillen.

  • John Hugh McQuillen
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Action of anaesthetics on the blood corpuscles / by J.H. McQuillen. 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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    corpuscle, nothing of the kind was evident, as will be seen by the ac- companying illustration, drawn from the slide on which the blood was placed. (Fig. 2.) As already intimated, the experiments in this direc- tion have been prosecuted on every available occasion within the past few months; and I have not confined myself to frogs, but, in the course of vivisections on a large number of animals (rabbits, dogs, cats, and pigeons), to illustrate my course of lectures on physiology this winter, when these animals have been placed under the influence of other or chloroform, their blood has been examined and no change in the form of the corpuscle has been evident. Fourth Series.—The examination of the blood of a number of human beings, drawn prior to and after hav- p1G, 3. ing been under the influence of ether, chloroform, ov nitrous oxide, for the extraction of teeth, has yielded simi- lar results, as will be evident from the accompanying illustration of the blood,- obtained from a patient (Fig. 3), while under the influence of chloroform. Any one accustomed to microscopical examinations will recognize the nor- mal characters of the corpuscles, so far as it is possible to present them in a wood-cut. The results of these investigations were recently presented to the members of the Microscopical and Biological Department of the Acad- emy of Natural Sciences, illustrated by a large number of microscopical slides, and although some time has elapsed since the blood was placed on many of them, the corpuscles retain their form unchanged. Presenting the statements for what they are worth, and desiring that others may either confirm or disprove them by experiments of their own, as carefully conducted and as frequently repeated, and not merely performing a few experiments and then drawing conclusions which they would not be warranted in doing, I would suggest to such that there are two modes of preparing blood for microscopical examina- tion, each of which has been tried in ray investigations. First plan—the blood, placed on a slide, is spread with a knife-blade thinly over the glass, then waving it backward and forward in the air. the blood is dried by evaporation, and can be covered with a thin glass slide, cemented, and kept for a considerable length of time without change. Second plan—a drop of blood is placed on the slide, a thin glass cover is brought in contact with the edge of the drop, and by capillary attraction, a stratum of blood is drawn under it. Although this answers for immediate examination, unless some men- Corpuscles of a patient under the influ- ence of chloroform.
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