1902,] NATUEAL SCIENCES OF THILADELPHIA. 337 



in the basement membrane by the osmic reagents. I have exam- 

 ined carefully all my preparations with the hope of finding some 

 such evidence, but have not found a single cell in an intestine 

 known to have contained fat which presented the expected appear- 

 ance. In one or two cases where the animal was fed with raw beef, 

 in which there may have been a slight trace of fat, the basement 

 membrane was found filled with small granules which blackened 

 densely with osmic fixations ; but as judged by the number of glob- 

 ules in the cells after a full meal of fat, there were entirely too 

 many of these for the small quantity of fat which it is possible to 

 suppose may have been contained in the beef, since particular care 

 was being exercised at the time to feed with lean meat free from 

 fat. Moreover, the cells presented coinci dentally with these glob- 

 ules fragmented nuclei, — probably a sign of degeneration (see 

 p. 294). 



It is significant that while I was confidently expecting to find fat 

 globules in the basement membrane, none of the drawings made at 

 that time and reproduced here shows blackened globules even in 

 contact with the membrane, while some of them (fig. 18) show a 

 gradation in size downward from the region of the nucleus to the 

 basement membrane. At this time — sixteen hours after feeding — 

 fat was passing through the membrane, probably in small quantity 

 only, but in fig. 19, ^ and B, both from the same intestine, 115 

 hours after feeding, it must have been passing in considerable quan- 

 tity. In B of the last figure, fat globules are seen lying against 

 the membrane on the outside of the cell ; but here, it must be said, 

 the blood was precipitated on the intestine by removing the dorsum 

 and fixing the intestine in situ. Only in such cases have I found 

 fat globules immediately against the membrane in the coagulum 

 outside the cell. This coagulum is often found in this position even 

 on intestines fixed after removal from the body. The morphologi- 

 cal evidence, therefore, is against the passage of fat through the 

 membrane as fat The conclusion must be that it is again split up 

 in the cell and resynthesized in the ccelomic fluid. ^^ 



The same figure shows several leucocytes containing fat globules. 

 Their position along the membrane cannot, of course, be taken 

 10 indicate a special agency in removing the fat from the cell, for 



1® Sliortly after reaching this conclusioD I received Loevenhart's (40) 

 paper, setting forth the same view from very diU'ereut considerations. 



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