BASIS OF THE CELL THEORY. 279 



any rate, in the animals above mentioned, does appear to take 

 place, from what may be observed in the closure of the ven- 

 tricles in a transverse section of the heart after death.) 



So far, the distinction of muscle- corpuscle would appear 

 to have no foundation, had not professor "VVeber, of Bonn, 

 put forth the observation (not since followed up) that in 

 certain diseases of the muscles, the granular masses surround- 

 ing the nucleus, not only simply multiply themselves, but 

 also produce from their interior cellseform bodies, like pus- 

 corpuscles, exhibiting, in short, phenomenon hitherto deemed 

 to belong to cells alone. 



However interesting it might be to discuss the correctness of 

 these statements of Weber^s, it will nevertheless at once be 

 seen, that we have in this case to do only with the deve- 

 lopment of pathological elements, with respect to which I 

 have already shown in a paper on the endogenous origin 

 of pus- and mucus-cells,"^ that so far as cell-formation is 

 concerned, bodies of this kind present peculiar deviations 

 from the laws which are known to obtain in normal cell- 

 formation in tissues. At best, the instance cited by Weber 

 would only be an example of " cell-formation around portions 

 of contents,^ ^ of which other instances have already been 

 adduced by Bahl and myself. 



Let us now return to Schultze's statements with respect to 

 the development of muscular fibre. It is true that what 

 I first made known in 1845, and illustrated with figures in 

 myEmbryological Researches in 1851-55, respecting the origin 

 of transversely striated muscular fibres from the elongation 

 of simple cells, whose nuclei undergo continual division, is 

 here confirmed, but with additions, against which I must 

 protest. It is asserted, for instance, that in the protoplasm 

 of cells, '' already endowed with contractility, the dis- 

 diaclasts and their groups, the ' sarcous elements,' become 

 difierentiated in the form of strongly and doubly refracting 

 corpuscles, and group themselves in a longitudinal direction 

 into rod-shaped fibrils," which '' continue attached to each 

 other by the remains of the unchanged protoplasm, which are 

 demonstrable even in the adult." In the first place, I deny 

 that the protoplasm, previously to the first movement of the 

 animal, as for instance of the tadpole, exhibits the slightest 

 trace of contractility. The notion that it is contractile can 

 only arise from the confounding with contractility of the 

 endosmotic phenomena exhibited in the musclei-cells. Fur- 

 thermore, at first there is no trace of fibrils, and still less 

 is there between them any remnant of protoplasm; but the 

 « Virchow's ' Arcliiv,' Bd. xx, 1860. 



