396 S. SAGUCHI 



any remarkable change in character, and which must be, from 

 its behavior in the secretion process, regarded as a fluid mass. 

 Secreting matter of this kind, in all probability, forms the greater 

 part of the pancreas fluid and serves as a vehicle for dissolving 

 the more viscous mass derived from the zymogen granules. 

 Altmann's theory, that 'die Sekretion ist ein granularer Proc- 

 ess/ cannot be applied as such to this case ; the secretion proc- 

 ess at least of the pancreas is both granular and fluid ; the specific 

 ferments are perhaps furnished from the zymogen granules, al- 

 though the substance of the intracellular network cannot be 

 looked upon as consisting of waste matters only. 



4. PHYSIOLOGICAL DEGENERATION 



The secretory cells, as is the case w T ith other kinds of cells, 

 undergo degeneration under some unknown physiological con- 

 ditions. The changes found in this process occurring in the 

 pancreas are in full accord with those which I have observed in 

 the epidermal glandular cells of amphibian larvae and described 

 in the previous paper ('15), to which the reader is referred for 

 details. The following is only a brief account of the process. 

 The first changes consist in the chromatic and nucleolar hyper- 

 chromasy, followed by chromatic separation. The latter proc- 

 ess is characterized by a flowing together of chromatic cor- 

 puscles, which leads to the formation of more or less large granules 

 or thick cords (figs. 110, 111). These further fuse together or 

 anastomose with one another so that at last a network or even 

 a capsule is formed at the periphery of the nucleus (fig. 112), a 

 state which is designated by pathologists as 'hyperchromasy of 

 the nuclear wall.' The area surrounded by the above capsule 

 is filled with nuclear sap and contains a somewhat enlarged 

 nucleolus. At successive periods, the nucleolar hyperchromasy 

 of the nuclear sap gradually diminishes. Meanwhile the cell- 

 body decreases in volume in consequence of repeated frag- 

 mentation. This process is either limited to the cytoplasm 

 or continues so that the division of the nucleus is followed by 

 that of the cell-body (fig. 113). The fragments thus formed are 



