162 



Here, as elsewhere, the more quickly grown the cell, the more 

 fluid the plasm. The j^lasm of these cells is but little firmer 

 than treacle, and offers but little resistance to the outAvard 

 passage of the newly secreted globules ; and it is probably in 

 this outward passage that each globule gets its water-proof 

 albuminous coating — the so-called haptogenic membrane. The 

 nature of the colostrum-corpuscles may now be understood. 

 They are the old superficial cells which had long been 

 dormant, and become rigid with old age. They had set to 

 work to perform their function to the best of their ability, biit 

 eagerness would not make up for incapacity, and though 

 choked almost to bursting Avith their anxiety to succeed, they 

 had to yield their places to their more active juniors. Virchow 

 has jumped to the conclusion that milk is always secreted in 

 colostrum-corpuscles, only that in the acute action of the gland 

 the cell-wall ruptures, and the mass is more rapidly broken 

 up. I should like to ask the learned Berlin professor 

 whether it is usual in his histological experience to find rapid 

 disintegration of young and active nuclei ? 



In the embryonic formation of adi]30se tissue we may with 

 ease observe the adnuclear secretion of oil; the globule con- 

 tinuously enlarging until the j^lasm is comj^ressed into cell- 

 wall. This latter structure is here, as in the old mammary 

 cell, the remnant of plasm, and wherever it occurs, however 

 far separated from the nucleus, it may still fairly be considered 

 as histologically homologous with plasm. But it is not always 

 due to the outward pressure of cell-centents, for, as we see in 

 the vegetable, the plasm may be in part absorbed (i.e. meta- 

 morphosed), and afterwards thickened by linings. The plant, 

 in fact, has no other means of laying aside such excrementitious 

 secretions as lignin, except by secondary deposit. The cell- 

 wall is, moreover, sometimes altered by interstitial changes 

 where the plasm has never been altered into cell-wall. 



In the pathological condition known as fatty degeneration 

 we may often study the secretion of oil with great ease. 

 Lately I met with a case of this disease in the liver, Avhere 

 instead of each cell containing a multitude of small oil-globules 

 shut off from one another by plasm, the oil was secreted in 

 each cell in one drop.^ So that in different cells tlic different 

 stages in the formation of adipose tissue were exactly imitated. 

 In some of these cells no plasms existed except in the form of 

 cell-membrane, and as the nucleus was driven to the surface 

 of the cell, the resemblance to the adipose vesicle was com- 



^ I have since met with tliis variation again, and I am inclined to think 

 tliat it is caused in part by raj)id, continuous secretion, and in part by a 

 difference in the proportion of the mixed fats secreted. 



