COMMENT ON MISS BECKWITH’S PAPER ON “THE 
GENESIS OF THE PLASMA-STRUCTURE IN 
HYDRACTINIA ECHINATA” 
MARIANNA VAN HERWERDEN 
From the Physiological Laboratory, Utrecht, Holland 
In a recent article! discussing the origin and relationships of the 
protoplasma granules in the egg of Hydractinia echinata, Miss Cora 
J. Beckwith gives a totally erroneous idea of the results of a study on 
the eggs of Strongylocentrotus lividus and some other Echinoderms 
which I published in the Archiv fiir Zellforschung, Band 10, 1913. 
It seems probable that she did not see my original article, otherwise 
her conclusion (p. 215) that I consider the basophilic granules in the 
cytoplasm as an artefact (because I could not have seen them in the 
living egg) would have been utterly impossible. In reality, I empha- 
size in my paper that I have seen these granules in young, living egg- 
cells (Arch. Zellforsch, Bd. 10, p. 488) and that they later form the 
building-stones of the so-called chromidia of the German authors. All 
that I considered as an artefact was the particular way in which the 
chromidia are arranged around the nucleus, this appearing in a most 
pronounced manner after insufficient fixation methods. Had she read 
pages 438 and 439, she would have seen that I agree with her (p. 200) 
that with good fixation there is a uniform distribution of the granules. 
On page 215 Miss Beckwith says: ‘‘ Unlike Schaxel, however, he (van 
Herwerden) holds the mitochondria to be developed from this baso- 
philic substance, since it is also a nucleinic acid compound;” and 
(p. 216) “the nuclease digestion indicates nucleinic acid present in the 
granules and mitochondria.” Anyone will search my paper in vain 
for a chemical test for mitochondrial constitution. I have never at- 
tempted to give one. Having demonstrated the nucleinic-acid nature 
of the granules composing the particular structures called chromidia, 
I only said that, with the Benda stain for mitochondria, I obtained 
violet-colored granules on the alveolar walls which, located as they 
are, probably are to be considered as the same elements we recognized 
in the alcohol-fixed preparations as containing nucleinic acid. The 
doubts I expressed in my paper on the specificity of the Benda-stain 
reaction (see, also, Ciona intestinalis) was reason enough for avoiding 
the use of the term mitochondria instead of basophilic granules. I 
only stated that, using Benda, the deep stain of the granules situated 
1 Jour. Morph., vol. 25, no. 2, 1914 
387 
