MUSCULATURE OF CULEX PUNGENS. 28 1 



He compares the two modes to those which pass in chronic and 

 acute pathological phenomena. 



Bataillon ('90) found that the muscles destined to disappear in 

 the tail of the pollywog (anoures) presented undeniable evidence 

 of degeneration before the appearance of the phagocytes. Phago- 

 cytes seem drawn toward the place of degeneration, but not before 

 many sarcolytes (muscular fragments, containing nuclei or not) 

 are present, and these latter may break up without being incor- 

 porated in the phagocytes. Thus the migratory cells play only 

 an accessory part in the process. Metschnikoff ('92) takes up the 

 subject again and maintains in response to Bataillon, that in the 

 muscles there is shown neither a disappearance of the nuclei, 

 spontaneous degeneration of the muscular fasciculus, nor infiltra- 

 tion of the muscles by leucocytes. The atrophy then is brought 

 about by muscular phagocytes derived from the muscular nuclei 

 which persist and are surrounded by a granular sarcoplasm. 

 Thus the muscular fasciculus is disassociated and absorbed by 

 one of the elements which constitute it without any intervention 

 on the part of the leucocytes. " Neither the disassociation of 

 filaments nor the formation of myoplastic fragments or sarcolytes 

 are ever spontaneously produced without the active cooperation 

 of the muscular phagocytes." 



Bruyne ('98), in an admirable paper, gave a detailed account 

 of a thorough study of the metamorphosis of Mitsca vomitoria, 

 as well as other insects and crustaceans. He finds the muscles 

 reduced to isolated fasciculi in which the striation is distinctly 

 recognizable. The nuclei are hypertrophied and lodged in finely 

 granular protoplasm. Part of the muscle bundle retains its 

 morphological characteristics and stains with haematoxylin ; other 

 parts show the above phenomena. Furthermore, numerous sar- 

 colytic fragments taking the rose tint of the eosin are found in 

 the excavations of the muscles and about the bundle ; also small 

 ones shading in color to a pale violet. These manifestly mark a 

 transition from the normal muscular bundle to the necrotic sarco- 

 lytes. Leucocytes do not participate in these changes. The 

 destruction of the muscles, which is evident, has come about then 



1 " Response a la critique de M. Bataillon au sujet de 1'atrophie musculaire chez 

 les tetard," Ann. Institut Pasteur, 1892, p. 236. 



