THE SPINDLE‐CELLS IN RELATION TO COAGULATION OF FROG'S BLOOD

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Abstract
1. The thrombocytes of frog's blood, which alter so quickly on contact with glass or other water‐wettable surfaces, undergo no deformation and cytolysis as long as the blood is kept on solid paraffin.2. While the erythrocytes and the leucocytes of frog's blood can by means of the centrifuge be separated from the plasma, the thrombocytes, which have a density identical with that of the plasma, cannot be thus removed. A specimen of plasma obtained by simple use of the centrifuge clots on coming in contact with glass.3. From the centrifuged plasma of the frog the thrombocytes can be removed by passage through a charcoal filter. Plasma thus freed of thrombocytes readily clots on addition of tissue extract (thrombokinase), but will not spontaneously clot on contact with glass. In this respect it resembles hydrocele fluid, which is platelet‐free.4. Spontaneous coagulation of centrifuged frog's plasma is due wholly to disintegration of the contained thrombocytes. This disintegration in its turn is due to contact with a special kind of surface. As a result of the cell disintegration thrombin is liberated.5. Bird's blood, or centrifuged bird's plasma, has less tendency to undergo spontaneous coagulation on contact with glass. In this respect bird's blood differs both from amphibian and from mammalian blood.6. Tissue extract or thrombokinase prepared from the frog's ventricle is all but impotent to induce coagulation of cell‐free plasma. In this regard the tissue of the ventricle differs markedly from the connective tissue, liver, muscle, etc., of the frog.7. Contact cytolysis of frog's thrombocytes is due to a purely physical cause, and does not depend upon absorption by the cells of any soluble material derived from the effective water‐wettable surface. The better an adequate surface of insoluble material is chemically purified and freed of grease, the more rapidly does it induce cytolysis of the thrombocytes.8. Thrombokinase or tissue extract plays no part in the production of thrombin during simple spontaneous coagulation of the blood. In this regard the theory of Morawitz as to the precursor of fibrin‐ferment requires amendment.9. The word “prothrombin” (or “thrombogen”) might well be replaced by the phrase “unruptured thrombocytes,” for it would seem to be these that constitute prothrombin.10. In any representation of the chain of phenomena involved in spontaneous blood coagulation place must be given to an indispensable physical process, as a result of which the thrombocytes are induced to yield thrombin.The expenses of this research were defrayed in part by a grant from the James Cooper Fund of M'Gill University for Research in Experimental Medicine.

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