Blood cells of schizophrenics differ in many points from
those of normal subjects. First of all the shape of them is flat and thin. This tendency is more marked in old group than in new group; the volume is small; flat corpuscles are more numerous in them in the normal; and the blood resistance against diluted saline solution is stronger than that of the normal. It has long since been known that the rate of corpuscle sedimentation is being accelerated in schizophrenics. A simple physical cause that blood corpuscles are flat and numerous can explain
this phenomenon. It is said that there is an antisphering substance among the factors controlling the thickness and roundness of blood corpuscles. Yet it has not been determined whether this substance on the surface of the blood of schizophrenics is large or small. Blood corpuscles are said to lose their peculiar disc-shape and to be completely destroyed at the pH of 9.2 when the antisphering substance is removed from the surface of blood
corpuscles. The lower the pH is the better is the absorption of this substance on the surface of blood corpuscles; and it seems that the more this substance attaches itself to blood corpuscles the greater is the degree of flatness and in this connection it is
interesting to note that the pH of schizophrenic blood is low in low in general. On the other hand, however, sphericity is increased at the time when the acidity of blood is increased due to a sudden movement of acidic substances immediately after ECT. Again in the case of coma of insulin treatment, blood tends to be alkaline and even then an increase in the sphericity of corpuscles is indicated. Consequently it seems tnat the roundness
of blood corpuscles is not solely dependent upon antisphering substance and pH.
