PRESENT STATUS OF CHONDRIOSOME PROBLEM. 73 



all tissues, Altmann's bioblasts whose discovery unfortunately 

 led their author to theoretical considerations which threw dis- 

 repute on his observations, Boveri's archoplasmic granules which 

 in the dividing egg of Ascaris megalocephala surround the cen- 

 trosphere, all these things are identical with Benda's mito- 

 chondria and with our chondriosomes. We know further that 

 the morphology of that same substance in the different cells, or 

 even in a given cell at different periods of its life, is subject to 

 great variations. Thus the controversy between the partisans 

 of an exclusively filamentous structure of the protoplasm and 

 those who believed only in granules, has come to an end. The 

 morphological variations of chondriosomes in one cycle of life are 

 especially conspicuous in the seminal cells of many invertebrates. 

 There, in many species, the chondriosomes of the spermatogonia 

 are granules; in the spermatocytes, the granules flow together 

 and build up filaments and finally in the spermatid, a further 

 coalescence very often takes place, the result of which is the 

 formation of a single, compact, bulky body, well-known as von 

 la Valette St. George's "Nebenkern." A reverse process is 

 also observed. To return to an example already given, Boveri's 

 archoplasmic granules in the dividing egg of Ascaris are derived 

 from bodies which have, in the young ovocyte, a filamentous 

 form. One should be warned however against reuniting all 

 protoplasmic structures in one single group, as some have done. 

 As far as we know, there is no relationship between the chon- 

 driosomes and the idiosome, nor between the chondriosomes and 

 most of the elements designated as Golgi's apparatus. It is 

 becoming more and more clear in my opinion that the latter 

 denomination should be reserved to that element which in most 

 cells, especially in young cells and during the period of rest, is 

 closely connected with the idiosome and which has been described 

 under various names, such as Centrophormien, Zentralkapseln, 

 formazioni periidiozomici, idioectosome, etc. If I had to express 

 in a schema the structure of a young resting cell, I would propose 

 this one, (s. next p.) which in my opinion, corresponds to the pres- 

 ent state of our knowledge. It should be added here that, for 

 the majority of investigators, including myself, the chondriosomes 

 belong to the cytoplasm. Quite recently, the question of their 



