13 



two classes of granule cells in the blood. Some have very coarse 

 dark brown granules nearly uniform in size, occurring but scantily 

 near the nuclei. The latter are diffusely tinged slightly violet. Evi- 

 dently these are not the same as the acidophiles of the mucosa. The 

 same preparations show lighter yellowish brown finer granules which 

 I am not able to classify. The two groups may represent the acido- 

 philes and the neutrophiles. Both the latter are seen in pig's blood 

 after Ehrlich's triacid stain on materials fixed by heat, by Flemming's 

 mixture and by boiling alcohol. Embedded blood shows acidophiles 

 similar to those of the smears. The nuclei of the acidophile cells of 

 the mucosa are always spherical, an important difference between them 

 and the acidophiles of the blood, which are polymorphonuclear. 



I have not as yet found time to investigate thoroughly the granule 

 cells which occur in the lymphoid organs and connective tissue in 

 various parts of the body. A comparison of these with the granule 

 cells of the blood and intestinal mucosa is therefore postponed for a 

 later paper. 



Origin and Fate of the Granule Cells. 



Since the granule cells stand in no evident relation to the blood 

 or lymph vessels, their origin from or passage to these cannot be in- 

 ferred. The staining capacity of the acidophiles indicates that they 

 are closely related to acidophile granule cells of the blood, although 

 they are not identical. Their rather frequent connection with the re- 

 ticulum, their nuclear structure, and the variable number of granules, 

 suggest their origin from or their passage to connective tissue cells. 

 Whether they arise from connective tissue cells and wander to the 

 blood, as suggested by Stütz (9), or whether they are leucocytes 

 which later become fixed cells of the mucosa, as Krompecher (6) be- 

 lieves to be true for plasma cells in pathological tissues, is yet an 

 open question. In either case these cells probably represent a transitional 

 form and are identical neither with leucocytes nor with connective 

 tissue cells. Further, since there is no evidence of pathologic processes 

 in the cells, the granules must be looked upon as an expression of 

 their functional activity. I saw no evidence of mitosis, nor did I find 

 centers of proliferation. The fate of some of the acidophiles is 

 determined by their wandering into the lumen of the intestine, but 

 this does not frequently occur. 



