OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALTERATIONS OF BLOOD PLATELETS AS A FACTOR IN COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD

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Abstract
The changes of platelets in clotting and citrated blood were studied with the dark-field microscope and correlated with experimental variations of such conditions as Ca ion content and osmotically varying citrate solns. The conclusion is reached that "wetting" of the platelet after leaving the blood stream causes the formation of excrescences which by their surface expansion are especially liable to osmotic disturbances under the specific influence of Ca ions and perhaps of the lipids presumably present in the surface of the platelet. In all cases in which clotting occurs there is microscopic evidence of osmotic imbibition and partial disruption of the platelet, typically limited to the expanded excrescences. In citrated blood the platelet is preserved and its processes modified essentially in respect to their ability to show microscopic evidence of osmotic disruption, a change which is supposedly essential for the colloidal dispersion of the lipid factors to which recent chemical investigations attribute the role of the blood platelet in clotting.

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