354 ROBERT H. BOWEN. 



Golgi body. In other words the densely staining part of each 

 Golgi body is equivalent to the " Golgi apparatus " of authors, 

 while the non-staining substance associated with it is equivalent 

 to the " idiosome " of authors. If the Golgi bodies of the insect 

 could be aggregated into a single mass such as that in the pul- 

 monate " Nebenkern," then we would have the typical idiosome 

 and the typical Golgi apparatus of so many workers. The insects 

 thus furnish a clue to the whole involved series. The non-stain- 

 ing substance which forms the idiosome is really related not to the 

 centrioles, which may be situated within it at certain times, but 

 to the Golgi apparatus. So far as we know at present this inti- 

 mate relation seems never to be broken. The idea that the " idio- 

 some " is somehow related to the centrioles seems to have been 

 fostered by the view that " idiosome '' and " archoplasm " are 

 related, and that the idiosome could thus share in the formation 

 of the spindle. This is certainly .negatived in the Hemiptera 

 where the Golgi bodies have nothing to do with the spindle, and 

 by the further fact that in at least some mammals the idiosome is 

 still intact in the metaphase of division when the spindle is fully 

 formed. 



I would suggest therefore that before we theorize further on 

 these most confusing structures, a thorough reexamination of the 

 whole subject be made, using as a working hypothesis the possi- 

 bility that the Golgi apparatus and the idiosome may be essen- 

 tially a single structural complex. We know that in some cases 

 at least the mitochondria are composed of two distinct substances, 

 one staining readily by the usual methods, the other little if at 

 all. So too the Golgi complex would seem to be similarly duplex 

 in its structure, composed on the one hand of a readily staining 

 substance (the Golgi apparatus) and on the other of a relatively 

 non-staining material (the idiosomic substance). Should further 

 research bear out this possibility, the confusion in which we have 

 been involved will be dissipated and we shall have laid a firm 

 foundation on which to base the future study of these cytoplasmic 

 structures of the germ cells. 



