Mammalian & Plant Physiology

Experiment 1

Principle

Red blood cell count is typically ordered as part of a complete blood count (CBC). It is used as a screening test for anemia and polycythemia. A suitable dilution of blood (1/200) is made in formal citrate solution. This diluent lyses the white cells leaving the red cells intact. The number of RBCs in 1/5th of the RBC square is counted using an improved Neubauer counting chamber called a hematocytometer. The hematocytometer consists of 9 counting squares with each square having an area of 1mm2. Every square is filled with 0.1 ml of diluted blood. The result in expressed as RBCs/ lit of blood.

Materials required

1. Blood sample collected vacutainer containing in anti-coagulant.

2. Blood counting chamber

1. Calculation

2. N = the number of cells in 0.02 ml of diluted blood (the number of cells in five squares)

3. Number of cells in 1 ml of diluted blood =𝑁/0.02 𝜇𝑙 =𝑁 ×100/2= N × 50

4. Number of cells in 1 ml of whole blood = N x 50 x 200 = N x 10000

• Normal Ranges:

5. v Men: 5 + 0.5 X 1012/ l

6. v Women: 4.3 + 0. 5 X 1012/ l

Result

The total RBC count in the given blood same is……………………………RBC / L of blood.

Conclusion

Hematology is the study of blood cell counting is one of the most basic and yet most reliable ways of evaluating blood for multiple conditions of disease

Reference Material

1. Riley, Watson, Sommer, Martin. How to Prepare & Interpret Peripheral Blood Smears

2. Complete blood count, MedLine Plus, NIH, USA.

3. Ichihashi et al. (1996) The Haematology Atlas, Nagoya University School of Medicine, Japan.

Questions

1. How many morphologically different cell types do you observe?

2. What is the ratio of number of RBCs compared to WBCs you observed on your slide?