Excerpt from New Orleans Medical News and Hospital Gazette, 1859, Vol. 5: A Monthly Journal

According to Henle, N asse, and other distinguished hoematologists, the cause of the difference in color is rather to be found in the form of the corpuscles, affecting their power of transmitting and reflecting light, than in any chemical changes in the contents of the blood cells. If we dilute blood with water it assumes a dark red color, and then, under the micros cope, the blood corpuscles are evidently distended, they loose their discoid form and become spherical; the blood, collectively, must therefore appear darker, since each individual corpuscleihas become converted into a spheri cal mirror, from which the red rays are scattered and reflected. We observe the reverse on treating the blood with such substances as render the intercellular fluid relatively denser, there is then established an out ward current from the interior of the cell, in consequence of which it col lapses, the central depression becomes more considerable, land the individual cells resemble concave mirrors, from which the red rays are reflected with greater intensity. Scherer indicates another physical cause, viz.: the attenuation or thickening of the investing membrane. When the capsule becomes thinner by the expansion of the blood corpuscles, the pigment shines through more readily, producing a dark red appearance to the whole mass; when, on the contrary, the corpuscles are diminished, their capsules are thrown into folds, concealing the true color of the hoematine, and this imparts the brighter color to the blood.

But Lehmann, who has given, at great length, all the opinions on this subject, says that it would be erroneous to attribute the different coloring of the blood solely to mechanical circumstances, and that chemical ia fluences cflect changes in the hue of the blood pigment itself, especially oxygen and carbonic acid.

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