GOLGI AS ARTEFACTS 107 



A further unorthodox view should be mentioned. In two 

 papers (125, 126) Walker, and Walker and Allen, have denied 

 the real existence of the Golgi apparatus. In the first paper he 

 attempts to give a resuine of the acrosome in spermatogenesis. 

 It appears that he has misinterpreted the true views of workers 

 on this subject. Much of his confusion is due to the apparent 

 homology between idioplasm and archoplasm, which is inferred 

 by the incorrect use of these terms by some writers. The only 

 paper of Bowen's on spermatogenesis quoted by Walker does not 

 set out to deal with the Golgi apparatus, but with the behaviour 

 of the Nebenkern or mitochondria, while Bowen's two previous 

 papers (3, 4), which deal very fully with the structure and behaviour 

 of the Golgi apparatus and acrosome, are entirely neglected by 

 him. In his second paper he deals with artefacts similar {sic) to 

 the Golgi apparatus in appearance, produced by the usual methods 

 for the demonstration of that organ, in artificially and synthetically 

 produced films. He states that lecithin and kephalin in certain 

 colloidal mixtures behave as do the Golgi apparatus. He declares, 

 therefore, that as these two substances are known to be present 

 in the cell, the Golgi apparatus is an artefact pure and simple. 



In criticism of this it may be said that the figures produced 

 in support of this hypothesis are very different from the true 

 apjDearance of the Golgi apparatus in good preparations. Secondly, 

 the fact that lecithin and kephalin both behave in this way and 

 are present in the cell does no more than to present a possibility 

 as to the chemical constitution of the Golgi, upon which light is 

 much desired. It certainly does not account for the remarkable^ 

 constant evolutions through which the Golgi apparatus goes in 

 close correlation with other perfectly well-known cell phenomena 

 of very divergent kinds. Walker does not make any attempt 

 to account for the constancy of appearance of the Golgi elements 

 in definite and constant phases of the cell cycle. This fact should 

 be faced by anyone denying the existence of the Golgi apparatus. 



A final point must be raised with regard to the true Golgi 

 apparatus. It has long been known that in the cases where it is 

 disposed as a plate or network it is capable of considerable hyper- 

 trophy, and when in the form of isolated elements (dictyosomes) 



