157 



Ordinarj- absorbent cotton was finely cul bclwccji two 

 fingers by means of a small pair of accurate scissors into a 

 fine powder-like substance and sterilized by dry neat. It 

 was suggested beforehand, that if it were possible lo cut 

 the cotton threads extremely fine, they might be easily dis- 

 tributed in the fluid medium and each cotton thread being 

 so small that there would be room only for allowing one or 

 two cells to adhere to it; it would therefore be possible lo 

 aspirate the liquid drop of culture medium, containing the 

 colton threads and fibroblasts by means of a fine pipette and 

 aflerwards distribute it in a drop of plasma, which after 

 coagulation has taken place, would fix the cotton threads 

 with the few tissue cells on them, in various places wilhin 

 the clot. The method was found to be very satisfactory. 

 After the cells were transferred to the plasma clot, in Ihe 

 above way, they were found to be well isolated and distri- 

 buted in the plasma and the life of the cells could be ol)- 

 served from day to day. 



Soon after the cells had been Iransfei'red lo Ihe fixed 

 culture medium, they were found to have assumed a s})heri- 

 cal form, the cells in the liquid culture which eluded Ihe 

 pipette had also become spherical, a phenomenon which is 

 due to the sudden deprival of their solid support. This same 

 phenomenon has already been described also by Rous '^'''') 

 and U h 1 e n h u I h ^^^). The cells looked very much like 

 leucocytes. 



One will now observe a lively ameboid movement going 

 on in the spherical fibroblasts in the fixed medium. Often 

 the protoplasma currents may develop a remarkable turn 

 of speed. — After a few hours, as a rule, the cells will 

 have assuined a typical spindle shape, characteristic of fibro- 

 blasts. When this change has taken place all movement ap- 

 pears to cease. In this conditions the cells remain apparently 

 unchanged in outline, but the protoplasma filling up gra- 

 dually with vacuoles and fat granules, death takes place, and 

 the protoplasm decays and dissipates. 



