ce of myelocytes,
eosinophils, and nucleated red blood corpuscles.

III. ON THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE CELL-GRANULES, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE.

During the last ten years a large amount of valuable work has been done
on the cell-granules from histological, biological and clinical sides.
This has particularly assisted haematology, where a number of problems
remain whose solution is only possible by the aid of a knowledge of the
granules. We must therefore consider the history, methods, and results
of this work.

Ehrlich was undoubtedly the first to insist on the importance of the
cell-granules, and to obtain practical results in this direction. We are
obliged to mention this, since Altmann has, in spite of express
corrections, repeatedly asserted the contrary. In 1891[20] Ehrlich
refuted Altmann's claim to priority, nevertheless, Altmann in the 2nd
edition of his _Elementary Organisms_ (1894) stated that before him no
one had recognised the specific importance of the granules, though some
authors had viewed them as "rare and isolated phenomena."

We may quote a passage published by Ehrlich in 1878[21], that is, ten
years before Altmann's papers. "Since the beginning of histology the
word 'granular' has been used to describe the character of cellular
forms. This term is not a very happy one, since many circumstances
produce a granular appearance of the protoplasm. Modern work has shewn
that many cells, formerly described as granular, owe this appearance to
a reticular protoplasmic framework. And we have no more right to call
cells granular in which proteid precipitates occur, either spontaneously
as in coagulation, or from reagents (alcohol). The name should be kept
exclusively for cells in which during life substances, chemically
distinct from normal proteid, are embedded in a granular form. We can
readily distinguish but few of these substances, such as fat and
pigment; most of them we can at present characterise but imperfectly, or
not at all."

"Earlier observations, especially on the mast cells, led me to expect
that these granulations, though they had long been inaccessible to
chemical analysis, could be distinguished by their behaviour with
certain stains. I found, in fact, granules of this kind, characterised
by their affinity for certain dyes, and which could thereby be easily
followed through the animal series and in various organs. I further
found that certain granules only occurred in particular cells