GuilHermond - Atkinson — 194 — 



Cytoplasm 



very earliest investigations, the hypothesis that the Golgi apparatus 

 might well correspond to a vacuolar system analogous to that of 

 plant cells. Moreover, we had shown that, by means of Regaud's 

 method, the young filamentous and reticulate vacuoles may be seen 

 as a network of colorless canaliculi within the grey-tinted cyto- 

 plasm and present absolutely the aspect of the canaliculi of Holm- 

 gren. That led us to think that the apparatus of Golgi and that 

 of Holmgren might perhaps be one and the same formation, corre- 

 sponding to certain phases of the vacuolar system analogous to 

 that of plant cells. 



A little later, with Mangenot, we tried to verify this hypothesis 

 in the meristem cells of the barley root (Fig. 129) which, as we 

 have seen, contain small filamentous vacuoles, very characteristic 

 and easy to bring out by vital staining with neutral red. Treating 

 these cells by the method recommended by Bensley for detection 



of the canaliculi of Holmgren, we 

 succeeded in obtaining images very 

 comparable to those of an apparatus 

 of Holmgren formed of colorless 

 canaliculi, appearing as if punched 

 out against the grey cytoplasmic 

 background. These, in diiferentiat- 

 ing cells, swell and coalesce and, in 

 the mature cell, are transformed 

 into large vacuoles. Moreover, in 

 treating the same root with the sil- 

 ver impregnation methods which 

 Golgi employed to bring out his re- 

 ticular apparatus, we obtained in 

 the cells of the meristem a network 

 like that of Golgi, corresponding ex- 

 actly to the apparatus of Holmgren, obtained by the methods of 

 Bensley, and to the filamentous and reticulate phases of the vacu- 

 olar system, as they appear after vital staining with neutral red. 

 These observations which seemed to verify our hypothesis, were 

 later confirmed in animal cytology by the work of A. CORTI, then of 

 Parat and of his collaborators. CoRTi proved, in fact, that the 

 apparatus of Golgi and the apparatus of Holmgren constitute a 

 single formation, corresponding to a system of lacunae, which 

 the author called lacuome and which he compares to the vacuolar 

 system of plant cells. Furthermore, in entirely independent re- 

 search, Parat and his collaborators showed that the Golgi appa- 

 ratus and that of Holmgren correspond to a single foimation — 

 positive and negative images, respectively, obtained by different 

 methods and comparable to a vacuolar system like that in plant 

 cells and capable of being stained vitally by neutral red. The re- 

 search of Parat and his collaborators have, however, proved that 

 many of the formations assigned to the Golgi apparatus are images 

 of the somewhat altered chondriome, or are a superposed chondri- 

 ome and vacuolar system, or else are differentiated chondriosomes. 



Fig. 131. — Pea. Epidermal cells of 

 the cotyledons at the beginning of ger- 

 mination, da Fano's method. Aleurone 

 grains strongly impregnated: some ap- 

 pear filamentous. 



