Contributions to the Study of the Oogenesis of Patella. 



Technique. 



The method adopted in this investigatiou was to remove small 

 portions of the ovary from lightly chloroformed animals and to drop 

 the pieces into capsules of various fixatives. Those used included 

 Kopsch, Mann-Kopsch, Cajal, Da Fano, Flemming- without- acetic, 

 Zenker-without-acetic, Champy-KuU and Hermann. Of these the 

 clearest pictures of the Golgi apparatus were obtained with the 

 ]Mann-Kopsch method — i.e. fixation in corrosive osmic for two or 

 three hours, then wr.shing in distilled water and transferring to 

 2 p.c. OSO4 for fourteen days. Slides of material prepared in this 

 way were stained in acid fuchsin and dijEferentiated in warm picric 

 acid after the method of Altmann. The Golgi elements are then 

 stained black. The developing yolk granules appear first as a 

 dark brownish coloration amongst the Golgi elements, larger and 

 older ones are darker, and the mature spheres are of a deep 

 brownish black coloration. The mitochondria appear as red 

 granules, as do also the plasmosomes of the nucleus. 



If before staining with acid fuchsin slides are treated with 

 turpentine for about a quarter of an hour, the black appearance 

 due to true fats is removed, owing to the oxidizing properties of 

 the turpentine. The yolk bodies then appear as colourless spheres, 

 to the sides of which are attached the Golgi elements, still of a 

 deep black colour, which shows them to be of a special lipoid 

 constitution. 



In Limnxa preparations made by the Mann-Kopsch method 

 and stained with Altmann's acid fuchsin, Gatenby describes reddish 

 mitochondria and black Golgi elements and quite separate yolk 

 granules, which are of a yellowish-brown colour with a greenish 

 tinge due to the osmic acid. In Patella, however, no yolk granules 

 distinct from Golgi elements are found, so that while in Kopsch 

 preparations of the mature eggs of Liiiinxa the Golgi elements are 

 black, and the yolk bodies yellowish to brown, in Patella the 

 complex yolk bodies, consisting of Golgi elements and yolk bodies 

 combined, are of a deep black colour. In such preparations the 

 mitochondria appear as pale brown granules not at all clearly 

 distinguishable. The difference in colour in the yolk bodies in the 

 two cases appears to be due to' the superior olein content of the 

 Patella yolk body. 



The mature eggs of Patella prepared by the Mann-Kopsch 

 method and treated with turpentine show just beneath the Q.og 

 membrane, and again around the nucleus, layers of black granules 

 whose histo-chemical reactions show them to be of a lipoid nature, 

 though not true fat ; as will be described later, they are derived 

 from the Golgi elements of the yolk granules. The same granules 

 are shown by other fixatives which preserve the Golgi apparatus. 



B 2 



