color, which have a tendency to form in rouleaux. They are homogeneous, with no limiting membrane, and are made up of a fine network of tissue, the stroma, in which is embedded the hemoglobin or coloring matter. This hemoglobin is a crystalline body and the most complex substance known to chemists. The corpuscles are very flexible and can squeeze through small apertures, as in the tiny capillaries, and regain their shape. They are probably formed chiefly in the red bone marrow at the ends of the bones, which under the microscope shows red corpuscles in various stages of growth, and also in the spleen, for which no other use is known. Their function is to carry oxygen, which forms a chemical combination, though an extremely loose one, with the hemoglobin. As the tissues are more greedy of oxygen than is the hemoglobin, they rob the corpuscles of it.
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Fig. 46.—Various forms of leucocytes: a, Small lymphocyte; b, large lymphocyte; c, polymorphonuclear neutrophile; d, eosinophile. (Leroy.)
The white corpuscles or leucocytes are much fewer in number, about one to from 300 to 700 of the red, the average number being 5,000 to 10,000 to the cubic millimeter. They are larger than the red corpuscles, colorless, and spherical when at rest. Their structure is more definite, there being a definite cell substance or protoplasm and one or more nuclei, which vary more or less in shape and size. The corpuscles are classed in accordance with these variations in the nuclei. They are most numerous during digestion and are probably formed in the lymphatic system, constantly passing from the lymphatics to the arteries and veins. For they have
