io PHLEBCEDESIS 



and of certain excretory organs only. 1 There is reason to believe 

 that this small size of the ccelom in the Arthropoda is not duetto 

 a retention of the original small size of the ccelomic sacs, but is 

 to be ascribed to a swelling of another and independent liquid- 

 holding cavity, namely, the blood-vascular or haemal system which 

 has filled up the space formerly occupied by a capacious coelom. 



(b) The theory of Phlebo&desis the Ccelom and the Hcemoc<xl. 



This swelling of the peripheral portions of the hsemal system 

 may be called PHLEBGEDESIS, and the lacunar blood-holding spaces 

 resulting from it form a " Hsemoccel " which has no connection 

 with the ccelom, but has to a large extent encroached on the space 

 which once was occupied by ccelom and caused the reduction of 

 that organ to perigonadial and epinephric remnants. 



In the Mollusca the ccelom also appears to have undergone re- 

 duction in volume. The pericardial cavity and the more or less 

 extensive ramifications connected with it, as well as the gonadial 

 sacs, are the coelom of Molluscs. Until recently (1885) it was 

 erroneously supposed that the pericardial system of the Mollusca 

 contained blood. It does not ; it is, on the contrary, entirely dis- 

 tinct from the blood-system. In the more primitive Molluscs 

 (some Neomeniae and Cephalopoda) the pericardial and perigonadial 

 sections of the ccelom are in continuity, and in them also the 

 blood-system appears more completely developed in the form of 

 cylindrical tubes or " vessels " than in other Molluscs. But in all 

 Molluscs as in all Arthropoda 2 the process of Phlebcedesis has 

 taken place, and a voluminous, irregularly distended system of 

 blood - spaces a Hsemocoel has suppressed and replaced to a 

 large extent the coelom. In Lamellibranchs the paired, widely 

 ramifying tubes of the organ of Keber, leading out of the peri- 

 cardial coelom, appear to be the reduced representatives of a 

 formerly voluminous coelom. 



It appears that neither in Arthropoda nor in Mollusca is 

 there any breaking through of the swollen blood-cavities into the 

 ccelom. 



Before the theory of Phleboedesis was established, it was 

 supposed by many zoologists (of whom I was one) that the coelom 

 and blood-system were of one common origin, and that in Mollusca 

 and Arthropoda they were in open continuity, and, in fact, to a 

 large extent undifferentiated. This has now been shown to be an 

 erroneous view : the coelom is distinct from the vascular system in 



1 Possibly other remnants of the coelom exist as spaces in connective tissue. 



2 It remains to be ascertained whether the Copepod Crustacean Lernanthropus 

 with its tubular vascular system containing red blood is an exception or not. 



