RETICULAR MATERIAL IN THYROID CELLS 29 
discharged so rapidly from the cells that they escape observation. 
It is conceivable that the creation of passive congestion by ligat- 
ing the venous drainage may cause a retention of secretion in 
appreciable amounts. 
With this idea of the reticular material as an indicator of secre- 
tory polarity in mind, I think that a careful study of the hypo- 
physis may indicate into which channels the secretion is actually 
being discharged at the time the preparations are made. The 
occurrence of this material in the cells of the anterior lobe has 
already been recorded by Gemelli (’00) and by Tello (12). More 
recently Addison (717, p. 448), attempting to confirm and extend 
Gemelli’s work, has described a close-meshed reticulum which 
is much larger in the basophiles than in the acidophiles. He is 
so reticent regarding its nature that he prefers to call it the 
“macula, until further information is forthcoming.” My pre- 
liminary studies with the guinea-pig have failed to establish any- 
thing approaching an orderly arrangement (fig. 14). In order 
to obtain decisive results, the silver preparations will have to be 
combined with vascular injections, and will have to be recon- 
structed in serial sections, because the relations of the cells are 
so intricate. 
Cajal (14, p. 214) devotes several pages to a general considera- 
tion of the phenomena of polarization of the Golgi apparatus (or 
reticular material), mentioning particularly cases of ontogenetic 
reversal in its position in nerve cells. It is interesting to note 
also that Tello’s (13, p. 145) investigations on mammary-gland 
carcinomata bring to light a progressive depolarization in its posi- 
tion as the tissue assumes the characteristics of a neoplasm. 
Two interesting cases of experimental reversal are described in 
the stomach and in the kidney which show the sensitivity of the 
reversal mechanism. 
D’ Agata (10, p. 518) found that the position of the reticular 
material in the gastric cells is reversed sixteen hours after oper- 
ating on the stomach of triton. His figures show clearly that the 
material has taken up a position between the nucleus and the 
proximal border of the cell; that is to say, it is now in the pole of 
the cell which is generally considered to be the antisecretory. If 
