244 . S. SAGUCHI 



cell has lost its nucleus and the greater part of the cytoplasm, 

 the cilia still continue to move, provided the ciliary apparatus 

 be left intact. 



The basal corpuscles, on the contrary, seem to play an im- 

 portant part in the ciliary movement and are never lacking in 

 all true ciliated cells. Even when they have not been detected, 

 it would be going too far to conclude that they are not essential 

 to the movement of the cilia ; for it often occurs that they are not 

 brought out by staining. Moreover I cannot so disregard the 

 basal corpuscles which Kolacev ('10) describes: "Fiir die Me- 

 chanik der Flimmerbewegung . . . . ist das Vorhanden- 

 sein eines fest fixierten Korperchens durchaus zweckentsprech- 

 end, wenn nicht gar physiologisch notw^endig." The view of 

 Apathy ('97), postulating the nervous nature of the basal cor- 

 puscles and the rootlets of the cilia, is very curious and seems 

 to have obtained few adherents amongst histologists. 



Those investigators who accept an active mobility of the 

 cilia themselves, claim to have observed, either the movement 

 of broken ciha or of certain structures in them. Although I 

 have studied sections from different places and with varying 

 degrees of staining mth iron-haematoxylin, I have never been 

 able to detect either axis-fibrils, as seen by Koltzoff ('06) and 

 Erhard ('10), or the transverse striation described by Kolacev 

 ('10). In the following I, first, summarize my observations and 

 then express my opinion concerning the ciliary movement: (a) 

 There can be seen no trace of structure in the cilium ; (6) at the 

 basis of each cihum there is always a basal corpuscle, (c) beneath 

 the row of basal corpuscles in most cases there can be seen a 

 transparent zone, through which the rootlets of the cilia pass 

 downwards from the basal corpuscles; (d) the rootlets of the 

 cilia are only a part of the trabeculae of the protoplasmic reticu- 

 lum; (e) the cilium, basal corpuscle and rootlet are a continuous 

 structure; (/) viewed in tangential sections, the basal corpuscles 

 are arranged in linear series, parallel to each other; the cor- 

 puscles in the same row show a marked tendency to undergo 

 fusion with each other; (g) the dumb-bell-shaped or diplosome- 

 1 ke basal corpusc es form, in like manner, parallel rows. It 

 often occurs that the upper extremity of every basal corpuscle 



