FRANCIS A. HULST. 



the presence of leucocytes. He brings this forward to show 

 that the beginning of degeneration is marked by morphological 

 and chemical changes and not by leucocytes. This view which 

 is also upheld by other observers denies that the initial cause of 

 muscular degeneration is phagocytosis, but that phagocytosis is 

 secondary to some other change in the muscle itself. 



In Culcx the appearance of phagocytes about a muscle is a 

 comparatively late occurrence. In the majority of cases there is 

 a considerable loss of substance in the contractile tissue, a vacuo- 

 lation, without their presence and often they are not found at all. 

 What Bruyne notes in Mitsca and represents in Fig. i, PI. VII., 

 of his work, is repeatedly found in this insect, i. i\, the muscles 

 show an early degeneration by separation of the fibers and hyper- 

 trophy of the nuclei as already shown. The first change noted 

 is a stripping off of the ensheathing layer which often becomes 

 broken, and an increase in the amount of the granular protoplasm 

 which surrounds the nucleus, separates it from the fibers, which, 

 together with a more granular appearance of the sarcoplasm, 

 presents a condition comparable to what is known to pathologists 

 as " cloudy swelling " or " granular degeneration." The nucleus 

 leaves its normal position close to the fiber, where it presents a 

 flattened or oval shape, to lie free in this granular material, and, 

 at the same time, it becomes more spherical in shape. The next 

 step is the loss of striations which gradually takes place, and a 

 division of the fiber into fibrillse before the form of the fiber is 

 lost. In some instances there is a transverse breaking of the 

 muscle bundle and a localized condensation of the contractile 

 substance as shown in Fig. 2, Pi. X. This is probably due to a 

 contraction of the weakened muscle and is not a constant feature 

 of the process. In Fig. I, PI. X., no phagocytes are found. 

 Several nuclei, apparently normal, except for their shape and 

 position, are seen separated from the bundle, and // shows a 

 beginning hypertrophy. 



It is evident that in Cnlcx there is a direct degeneration of the 

 muscles. Although there is in some cases, not in every instance, 

 a phagocytosis, as will be shown later, it shows no active relation 

 to the degenerative process either in point of time of its occur- 

 rence or in the manner in which it manifests itself. Korotneff 



