254 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. I. 



protoplasmic portion of the gland cell, between the nucleus and the mem- 

 brana propria ; they are oval in outline, and either solid or more or less 

 spirally twisted. There may be one or more in each cell, and when one 

 only is present it is usually larger than the several taken together, which 

 may happen to be in another cell. On the fourth to the fifth day after 

 feeding the animal (salamander), they are present in every gland cell, 

 while they may be found with difficulty, or not at all, in animals recently 

 fed, and they are rare in animals which have fasted for a long time. 



Nussbaum also found solid nebenkerne in the oesophageal glands of 

 the frog, and in the exhausted, unicellular glands in Arguhis, and thread- 

 like ones in the pancreas of Triton. 



As to the nature of these bodies, Nussbaum came to no conclusion. 

 Ogata*, on the other hand, put forward a view which connected them with 

 processes of secretion and cell renewal. According to his account, they 

 are the plasmosomata of the nucleus, which have wandered into the cell 

 protoplasm. The small nebenkerne are homogeneous, spherical, or ellip- 

 tical in outline, often elongated and do not stain with haematoxylin, but 

 they readily imbibe eosin, which, consequently, obscures their presence 

 amongst the similarly stained zymogen granules. In the larger neben- 

 kerne the chromatin substance is present, consequently they are either 

 colored homogeneously violet or have one or more corpuscles colored 

 deep violet to pure blue. The large nebenkern can, on the one hand, in 

 old and exhausted cells, develop into a new cell, which, situated immedi- 

 ately adjacent to the membrana propria, pushes the disintegrating 

 nucleus and remains of the old cell towards the lumen, and increases its 

 own cytoplasm, in which zymogen granules appear ; on the other hand, 

 it may, in ordinary cells, break up into zymogen granules. It depends 

 on the general condition of the gland, whether the nebenkern breaks up 

 into zymogen granules, or developes into a new cell. The production of 

 zymogen is not, however, limited to the nebenkern, for the granules were 

 seen in the process of formation in the nucleus. 



Ogata found in the moderately large, as well as in the full-sized 

 nebenkern, cavities and fissures which gave them various appearances. 

 Sometimes the structures were seen to sit cap-like on the nucleus. 



Ogata stimulated the pancreas either by pilocarpin or by electrical irri- 

 tation of the medulla, and found the number of nebenkerne greatly 

 increased. When two or more doses of pilocarpin were given at intervals 

 of twenty-four hours, the resulting number of nebenkerne was smaller 



*Die Veranderung der Pankreaszellen bei der Secretion. Arch, fiir Anat. and Phys., Fhys- 

 Abth., 1883, p. 405. 



