PUS-CORPUSCLES. 7\ 
4. Pus-corpuscles. Weare entitled to consider the pus-cor- 
puscles as cells, by the same arguments which we applied to 
those of mucus. Vogel, indeed, regards them as identical 
with those mucus-corpuscles which, according to his view, are 
morbidly secreted, but which Henle believes to be normal. 
They are similarly affected by acetic acid, and cannot therefore 
be young epithelial cells, in which, according to Henle, the 
splitting of the nucleus does not take place under similar cir- 
cumstances ; indeed, that property appears to be confined en- 
tirely to the nuclei of the mucus and pus-corpuscles. Vogel 
states that the nuclei of pus-corpuscles are concave. The pus- 
corpuscles are thus peculiar cells which are formed in the 
serum of pus,—i. e. in cytoblastema, exuded during inflamma- 
tion, in increased quantity, and of anomalous composition,— 
precisely in the same manner that mucus-corpuscles originate 
in mucus, and, indeed, as all cells form in their cytoblastema, 
in accordance with the fundamental law already laid down. 
According to the observations of H. Wood, they appear to be 
earliest formed upon the’ surface of the granulations, and for 
the reason that their cytoblastema, the pus-serum, is constantly 
exuding freshest at that part, and therefore possesses in that 
situation the greatest amount of plastic force, as we have 
already observed in reference to the formation of new yelk- 
cells on the outside and in the neighbourhood of the vitelline 
membrane. It is, however, probable that the pus-cells pursue 
an independent growth for a period, as we have seen to be the 
case with respect to those yelk-cells which were far removed 
from the vitelline membrane. It is also most likely that the 
nuclei of the pus-cells are their first formed part, but I have no 
investigations on the subject. The more healthy the pus, the 
greater is its plastic force, and the greater the number of cells 
which are formed in it, so that in healthy pus the quantity of 
serum is very small in comparison with the number of cells. 
I cannot state whether the oil-globules which are present in 
certain secretions, such as milk and chyle, are contained in 
cells or not. I have not been able to detect anything indi- 
cating that they are so in milk; and, according to the theory 
of the secretions, which will be communicated at a subsequent 
stage of the work, there does not appear to be any necessity 
why they should be so. 
