A further study of the reaction of the amphibian erythrocyte to vital dyes, osmic acid, and silver salts, with special reference to basophilia and reticulation

The long series of studies by Pm-at (’28) on the V H C U O ~ ~ has focused the attent,ioii of cytologists 011 neutral red as a means of selectively stailling certain, definite, preformed elements in the living cytoplasm. Other studies by Chlopin (’27, ’38), however, indicate that exposure of the living cell to neutral red, under certain conditions at least, may induce the formation of cytoplasmic bodies which can be later demonstrated in fixed a i d stained material by their characteristic basophilic reaction. 111 an earlier study of the erythrocytes of Nccturus (Dawson, ’28 a) it was pointed out that tliesc cells uniformly contain two bipolar clusters of granules which stain selectively with vital dyes, give a basophilic reaction in fresh smears stained with either Wright’s or Giemsa’s blood stain, and blacken on prolonged exposure to osmic acid. These cytoplasmic inclusions of the erythrocyte, therefore, exhibit certain reactions, staining with neutral red and blackening in osmic acid, which make them appear homologous with the elements of the vacuome in the zone of Golgi as described by Parat, while their aEnity for neutral red and basophilic reaction also suggest some relationship to the ‘Krinom Substanz’ of Chlopin which reacts more or less specifically with neutral red to produce certain basophilic elements in the cytoplasm.