there exist other corpuscles or cells in the blood in much smaller
quantity, which are called white cells, and these different cells float
in the blood-stream within the vessels. The red take the centre of the
stream; the white lie externally near the sides of the vessels, moving
less quickly. Our business is mainly with the red corpuscles. They
perform the most important functions in the economy; they absorb, in
great part, the oxygen which we inhale in breathing, and carry it to the
extreme tissues of the body; they absorb, in great part, the carbonic
acid gas which is produced in the combustion of the body in the extreme
tissues, and bring that gas back to the lungs to be exchanged for oxygen
there; in short, they are the vital instruments of the circulation.

"With all these parts of the blood, with the water, fibrine, albumen,
salts, fatty matter and corpuscles, the alcohol comes in contact when it
enters the blood, and, if it be in sufficient quantity, it produces
disturbing action. I have watched this disturbance very carefully on the
blood corpuscles; for, in some animals we can see these floating along
during life, and we can also observe them from men who are under the
effects of alcohol, by removing a speck of blood, and examining it with
the microscope. The action of the alcohol, when it is observable, is
varied. It may cause the corpuscles to run too closely together, and to
adhere in rolls; it may modify their outline, making the clear-defined,
smooth, outer edge irregular or crenate, or even starlike; it may change
the round corpuscle into the oval form, or, in very extreme cases, it
may produce what I may call a truncated form of corpuscles, in which the
change is so great that if we did not trace it through all its stages,
we should be puzzled to know whether the object looked at were indeed a
blood-cell. All these changes are due to the action of the spirit upon
the water contained in the corpuscles; upon the capacity of the spirit
to extract water from them. During every stage of modification of