THE VACUOLATION OF THE BLOOD PLATELETS: AN EXPERIMENTAL PROOF OF THEIR CELLULAR NATURE.

Abstract

On July 27, 1907, a paper appeared in the ‘Lancet’ by Ronald Ross, S. Moore, and C. E. Walker, entitled “A New Microscopical Diagnostic Method and some Simple Methods for Staining Liquid Blood.” It described new methods for the staining of blood-cells in vitro —notably the agar-jelly method—by mixing polychrome methylene blue with agar and preparing a film: blood-cells spread upon this will absorb the stain, and if the jelly is suitably prepared the different morphological elements of the cells can be readily distinguished. It also described how the leucocytes, after they had been resting on the jelly for a short time, developed bright red spots in their cytoplasm; and it was suggested that the spots might be centrosomes. The spots appear as bright scarlet points, and resemble closely what one would imagine that centrosomes would look like if they could be seen in polymorphonuclear leucocytes. The “red spots,” however, could not be found in the blood-platelets, and believing them to be centrosomes, the authors suggested in their paper in the ‘Lancet’ that if they could be demonstrated in the blood-platelets, it would settle the nature of these bodies, and close an old existing controversy.