When I first did a course in anatomy and physiology and we got to the part about blood, our lecturer was quite adamant about referring to red blood corpuscles, not red blood cells. He had a reason for this: red blood corpuscles did not have nuclei, and without nuclei, they could not be properly referred to as cells per se. In the 50+ years since that lecture, in every academic and clinical setting in which I have found myself, reference has always been to red blood cells—never corpuscles.
The only other time I have heard ‘corpuscles’ referred to was when I went to listen to a talk by the mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington (b. 1934). This must have been around 1990 when he came to speak at Saint David’s Hall in Cardiff. In fact, he referred to them as ‘corpuscules’. This is not a misspelling or mispronunciation. It happens to be a now obsolete version of ‘corpuscle’—but still close enough to be the only time I’ve heard a word other than ‘red blood cell’ used. Bonington was describing what a doctor on one of his expeditions was studying and how he would be required to provide samples at different altitudes.
I remember the word ‘corpuscle’ being used in the 1960s, i.e., in my youth. Use of just the word ‘corpuscle’ immediately denoted red blood corpuscles/cells. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known use of "red blood cell" dates from as early as 1850. The term "red blood corpuscle" was used earlier, with the first recorded use being in 1844. Looking further into the naming of blood cells, I find that the term ‘white blood corpuscles’ was also used in the mid-nineteenth century. I’ve never heard that term used, though. Why the phrase ‘white blood cell’ is used is perhaps a little puzzling when the more scientifically sounding word ‘leukocyte’ is available. (It’s three one-syllable words versus one three-syllable word. Perhaps nobody can remember whether it’s leukocyte with a ‘k’ or leukocyte with a ‘c’.)
And yet, I still like the idea of corpuscles. I like the way using the word 'corpuscle' distinguishes red blood cells from the other blood cells.
NB Here I have only been thinking of humans and the clinical setting where one does not expect to find nuclei in mature, fully formed red cells. There are animals that do have nucleated red blood cells. Fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds typically have nucleated red blood cells. In most mammals, mature red blood cells are not nucleated and also lack certain other organelles like mitochondria. This allows more space in which to pack haemoglobin. This, in turn, increases the cell's oxygen-carrying capacity.
Among vertebrates, non-nucleated red cells are unique to mammals. A notable exception within the class Mammalia is the family Camelidae (camels, llamas, and alpacas), which have elliptical red blood cells that retain a nucleus.
