694 



CIRRONOSIS CONCHIFERA. 



(about which there can be no doubt) is such as 

 strongly to indicate its adaptation to free loco- 

 motion ; and that, after a review of all the ob- 

 servations that have been published on the 

 subject, we are inclined to conclude in favour 

 of Mr. Thompson's opinion that, in the early 

 stages of its development, the young Cirriped 

 really enjoys locomotive powers, and then un- 

 dergoes such changes of structure as are re- 

 quired to fit it for its altered circumstances in 

 adult age. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. Leeuwenhoek, Opera, iii. 472. 

 Lister, Exercit. anat. 1696, p. 96. Cuvier, Mem. 

 pour servir a 1'histoire des Mollusques, 1817. La- 

 marck, Anim. sans vertebres, v. 377. J.V.Thomp- 

 son, Zoological researches, 1830 ; Fourth Memoir ; 

 and Phil. Trans. 1835, 355. Wagner, in Archiv 

 fur anat. physiol. &c. von D. J. Miiller, 1834, 

 No. v. Burmeister, Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte 

 der Rankenfuesser, Berlin, 1834. Martin St. Ange, 

 Memoire sur 1'organization des Cirripedes et leurs 

 rapports naturels avec les animaux articules, Paris, 

 1835. 



(John Coldstream.) 



CIRRONOSIS. (Ki#o?, fulvus; 

 morbus.J In a memoir published by M. Lob- 

 stein in the first volume of the Repertoire 

 d'Anatomie and de Physiologic* for the year 

 1826, this term was applied to what that author 

 considers to be a disease affecting the foetus at 

 an early period of intra-uterine life. The 

 essential characteristic of the malady consists 

 in the serous or transparent membranes being 

 dyed of a beautiful deep golden yellow 

 colour. " The disease is," says M. Lobstein, 

 " an internal jaundice of the peritoneum, of 

 the pleura, of the pericardium, of the arachnoid, 

 differing from the ordinary jaundice, in that 

 it does not affect the parenchymatous cellular 

 tissue of organs, nor the subcutaneous tissue, 

 uor the skin, the usual seats of that disease." 



Lobstein published the first account of the 

 occurrence of these appearances in two five- 

 month foetuses, in his Rapports sur les travaux 

 executes a I'Amphitheatie d'Anatomie de 

 Strasbourg.f Since that time additional cases 

 were presented to his attention, from which he 

 ascertained that the yellow staining was not 

 confined to the serous membranes only, but 

 also was found in the nervous tissues, espe- 

 cially those of the spinal marrow and encepha- 

 lon. By the aid of the microscope he perceived 

 that the substance of the marrow seemed to 

 be composed, as it were, of small grains of a 

 lemon yellow colour, mixed with a white and 

 pulpy substance, as if a very fine gold-coloured 

 powder had been intimately mixed with a soft 

 and semi-transparent jelly. In these cases the 

 thoracic portion of the sympathetic also exhi- 

 bited a similar colour, and the ganglia were 

 somewhat swollen, and it was ascertained by 

 the microscope that the stain was equally 

 inherent in the nervous substance of the ganglia 

 as in that of the spinal marrow. 



It is impossible to remove the yellow stain 



* Rep. d'Anat. et de Phys., t. i. p. 141. 

 t Page 26, ed. in 4to. 



from the structures in this condition either by 

 ablution or immersion for any length of time 

 in alcohol or water. The intensity of the 

 colour was not diminished in preparations 

 which had been preserved in spirits for seven- 

 teen years, neither was it affected by the action 

 of light. 



The difficulty of accounting for the pheno- 

 mena which constitute this disease of the 

 embryo is much increased by the fact that 

 cirronosis has hitherto been observed only in 

 three or five month fetuses. As at this period 

 the biliary secretion has not begun to be formed 

 in the usual way, we cannot attribute the 

 occurrence of this disease to any of the causes 

 which give rise to ordinary jaundice, so com- 

 monly met with in the fetus at and shortly 

 after birth. There seems, however, to be no 

 reason to doubt that the elementary constituents 

 of the biliary secretion may already exist in 

 the blood at an early period of intra-uterine 

 life, and that from them the stain may have 

 been communicated to the serous membranes 

 and nervous tissues. But we cannot but 

 express our concurrence in the opinion of 

 Andral, that cirronosis differs only in situa- 

 tion from the ordinary icterus infantum or 

 neonatorum; there being this remarkable dis- 

 tinction also, that the tissues which are the seat 

 of the colour in cirronosis are rarely affected 

 in jaundice. 



Although the observations of Lobstein were 

 first published ten years ago, I do not find 

 that they have been confirmed by any subse- 

 quent observer. The preceding account, there- 

 fore, of this disease rests entirely upon his 

 authority, and is drawn up chiefly from his 

 paper in the Repertoire already referred to. 



(R. B. Todd.) 



COLLOID. See SCIRRHUS. 



CONCHIFERA. Fr. Conchiferes. When 

 we take a general view of the organization of 

 the extensive series of Mollusca, two prin- 

 cipal classes are readily distinguished, one of 

 which has been raised to the rank of the pri- 

 mordial division of the animal kingdom by 

 Lamarck ; this class, comprising the whole of 

 the Acephala of Cuvier, as well as the Bra- 

 chiopoda, has received the name of CONCHI- 

 FERA. 



The mollusks included in the class of 

 Conchifera present peculiar characters which 

 prevent their being confounded in any point 

 of the series with the other classes of the same 

 sub-kingdom. They are all contained within 

 a bivalve shell, generally articulated after 

 the manner of a hinge ; to this shell the 

 animal is attached by one or several muscles, 

 and the shell itself is secreted by a fleshy 

 envelope, generally thin, but having the edge 

 thickened, to which naturalists agree in giv- 

 ing the name of mantle. The animal, of a 

 structure more simple than other mollusks, has 

 no head; the mouth is pierced at the anterior 

 extremity and is the entrance to organs of di- 

 gestion, consisting of a stomach, an intestine 

 of different lengths, an anus, and an organ 



