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process of inflammation. What, then, are the characters 

 upon which this conclusive " disintegration" is grounded ? 

 Probably that the cells were lacerated, or that fat-granules 

 were found. Of little value would tliis discovery be to any 

 one who luid occasion to draw a -wire through embryonic 

 tissue, and then to examine what remained adherent. As we 

 may see, the strict demonstration of the disintegration of liver- 

 cells has been held no less established than the genesis of 

 the matrix has been rendered certain. 



Although the objections raised against Holm's view are 

 unsupported by demonstration, still nothing remains proved 

 for this observer. It would, therefore, be worth while to in- 

 vestigate again tins interesting point. I have undertaken 

 this work, and with regard to the changes in the liver-cells 

 have arrived at certain trustworthy results. I thrust, as was 

 done by Holm, a needle into the liver of a dog ; at the end of 

 twelve hours the animal was killed, and the liver placed in 

 Cr03. Sections Avere made, and the parts surrounding the 

 puncture studied in the preparations thus procured. Already 

 after twelve hours spindle-shaped cells could be seen arranged 

 in layers around the needle. In consequence of the short 

 duration of the animal's life after the puncture, it may also 

 be almost concluded that the concentric elements are liver- 

 cells. The demonstration of this statement may be made 

 with irrefutable exactness. 



The speedy appearance of the spindle-shaped cells struck 

 me as remarkable, and I could not on that account shut out 

 the idea that the primary cause of their extrusion was a 

 mechanical one, and that the soft liver-cells were stretched 

 to spindle-shaped bodies by the thrusting in of the needle. 

 A simple experiment cleared up this conjecture. I opened 

 the abdominal cavity of a living animal, and cut away a piece 

 of the liver, in which I afterwards thrust a needle. After the 

 piece of liver had been hardened in a solution of CrO^ I made 

 sections, and then observed the elements, namely, the tissue- 

 cells, spindle shaped and arranged in layers around the 

 punctured canal ; other statements to the contrary must, 

 therefore, yield to this experiment. In the excised portion of 

 liver there could not exist colourless blood-corpuscles which 

 had migrated to the parts about the needle Avith so much 

 rapidity as to form, in the place of the speedily fading liver- 

 cells, a concentric ring. 



If one finds the concentric layer around the canal of punc- 

 ture made in an excised pprtion of liver, also around the seat 

 of puncture in livers which have no connection with the living 

 animal for twelve hours, and, finally, a similar concentric 



