262 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, [VoL. I, 



carpin. When these bodies are very small, the number of turns in the 

 coil is not more than two or three, whereas in the largest forms the 

 number of turns cannot usually be made out. 



All the forms, then, are either plasmodia-likc masses, or are composed 

 of fibrillne or threads. Whether the plasmodiaare elements of a separate 

 stage in the metamorphosis of the bodies,or whether theyare merely formed 

 by the fusion of the protoplasm of the threads, cannot be decided defi- 

 nitely. It can certainly be determined that the fibrillated stage is one 

 of degeneration, for one can find the fibrillated forms in all conditions up 

 to disappearance. Figs, i, 2, 3, 4, and Gnd show this. The first step in 

 this consists in a more or less parallel straightening of the fibrillae and a 

 consequent flattening of the whole mass, then the cell protoplasm pushes 

 it towards the periphery where it lies, usually, directly under the cell 

 membrane (Figs. 2, 3, and 4nd). Here the fibrillae disintegrate one by 

 one, till finally, owing to their fineness and small number, they can not 

 be distinguished from the cell protoplasm. Platner has described the 

 occurrence of such fibrillated remains in the cell protoplasm, and he con- 

 siders them derived from the nebenkerne. 



I am inclined to believe that the coiled thread is the intact form of the 

 parasite, and that the plasmodium-like mass may be either an earlier or 

 a subsequent stage in the life history of the parasite. In the case of the 

 latter form, the fact, that it is usually smaller than those in which the 

 fibrous or fibrillated structure is manifest, tends to show that it is a 

 younger stage, but not conclusively, since even small fibrillated masses 

 occur sometimes. 



I have withheld the proofs that these forms are parasitic till now. Of 

 course each fact adduced is not of itself sufficient to prove the correctness 

 of my view, but all taken together are conclusive in this respect. These 

 facts may be summarized in the following items : — 



They are not present in the pancreas of the great majority of young 

 forms oi Amblystoma punctatum. I sectioned the whole of the pancreas 

 of seven of these and found these bodies in only two of them. Of these 

 two, one contained only eleven of the structures, while the rest possessed 

 hundreds, and in both these cases, as well as in the other five, the cells 

 exhibited all stages in secretion. I treated five other larvae with pilocarpin, 

 and examined the pancreas at intervals of four, seven, eleven, thirteen, 

 and twenty-two hours after, without finding a single specimen of this 

 nebenkern. The larva, in which the greatest number of such were found, 

 measured in total length a little over thirty millimetres, while the others 

 were of the same length or some what longer, and we may conclude, there- 

 fore, that the occurrence of these bodies does not depend on the stage of 



