RT Journal A1 CROFTAN AC T1 SImplified methods of blood examination. their practical applicability to general diagnosis. JF Journal of the American Medical Association JO Journal of the American Medical Association YR 1899 FD February 25 VO XXXII IS 8 SP 413 OP 415 DO 10.1001/jama.1899.92450350017002f UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1899.92450350017002f AB Laboratory aids to diagnosis, to be universally employed by the practicing physician, should be simple and rapid of execution, should require no costly or complicated paraphernalia, and should yield quicker and more positive results than purely clinical methods.No period in the history of medicine has been free from attempts to find diagnostic clues in the examination of the blood; it was tried to interpret the rapidity of coagulation, the crusta phlogistica of eighteenth century physicians, the appearance of the blood as it flowed from the incised vein. With the development of microscopic technic and an insight into the truths of cellular pathology, valuable data relating to the morphology of the corpuscular elements of the blood in health and disease were discovered. During the last decade, especially through the efforts of German and American investigators—at their head Ehrlich of Berlin and Neusser of Vienna—a mass of purely empiric data on