392 



has seen the extraordinary modifications of form which these 

 little masses of protoplasm undergo in the course of their 

 so-called " amoeboid movements," would readily credit their 

 capability of j^assing through such apertures. As the amoeboid 

 movement does not occur in the white corpuscles while rolled 

 along in the torrent of the circulation, but only when the 

 movement of the blood is arrested more or less completely, 

 the fact that large numbers of white corpuscles do not 

 habitually pass through the vascular walls into the tissues 

 will not militate against the notion of j)atulous orifices. That 

 a passage of the white blood-corpuscles through the vascular 

 walls does actually occur, is shown by the next picture. 



XI. Photograph representing white corpuscles in various 

 phases of the amoeboid movement, in the external coat of a 

 small vein of the muscular coat of the stomach of a mare. 

 Negative No. 46, New Series. From preparation No. 3382, 

 IVJ icroscopical Section. Magnified 400 diameters by Wales's 

 -i^th objective. The preparation was made by Dr. E. M. 

 Schteffer. 



This preparation is one of a number of sections made from 

 the stomach of a mare dead of gastroenteritis. In these 

 sections, which are stained with carmine and mounted in 

 Canada balsam after the method described in the early por- 

 tion of this paper, it was found that many of the small veins 

 of the sub-peritoneal connective tissue and of the muscular 

 coat were surrounded by white corpuscles fixed in all stages 

 of the amoeboid movement. In a number of places where 

 the sections pass transversely through the veins, the white 

 corpuscles can be observed in the interior of the vein, and in 

 the vascular walls as in the adjacent tissue. The series of 

 preparations gives a satisfactory demonstration of the wan- 

 dering of the white corpuscles. I have made eff"orts to pre- 

 serve the frog's mesentery permanently, in a number of the 

 cases in which I have observed the same process in that 

 membrane, but hitherto without success. 



It will be seen from the forgoing details that, so far as the 

 structure of the vascular walls and the passage of the white 

 corpuscles through them are concerned, the facts appear to 

 be on the side of Cohnheim. How then with regard to the 

 doctrine of inflammation which he builds upon these facts 

 and upon his corneal studies ? Does the creeping out of the 

 white corpuscles constitute the essence of the inflammatory 

 process ? Do these little moveable masses of living proto- 

 l)lasm furnish the germs for the elements of new formations ? 

 Have pus-corpuscles no other origin? Are the processes 



