QUARTERLY CHRONICLE. 271 



normal multiplication of the stellate cells of connective 

 tissue. The labours of Herr Cohnheim have, however, con- 

 ducted him to a very different result. He has assured him- 

 self that the colourless corpuscles of the blood, the amtcboid 

 movements of which are well known, possess the property of 

 jjassing through the wall of the capillaries without tearing 

 them. They appear to make themselves a way by the dilata- 

 tion of " stomata " in the vascular epithelium, or perhaps 

 even they may actively pierce the wall. It is, therefore, 

 right to consider whether there may not exist between the 

 colourless corpuscles of the blood and the corpuscles of pus 

 something more than a simple resemblance of form, and 

 whether they are not actually identical one with another. 

 M. Cohnheim gives his adhesion to the affirmative, and he 

 tests his theory by an ingenious experiment. He impreg- 

 nates wdtli a coloured substance the anijeboid corpuscles of a 

 lymphatic sac in a frog, whose cornea he has previously j^ut 

 into an inflammatory condition by a lesion ; then he searches 

 with the microscope, among the globules of the pus of the 

 cornea, for the cells impregnated with the colouring matter. 

 As a matter of fact he finds them there, w^hich appears singu- 

 larly favorable to his view of the matter. The globules of 

 . pus would then be lymphatic corpuscles extravasated from 

 the capillaries, although one cannot affirm that these cor- 

 puscles are not capable of multiplying themselves outside of 

 the circulatory system. 



Comptes Rendiis. May. — " The Tactile Corpuscles.'''' — M. 

 Houget believes he has demonstrated the actual structure of 

 these bodies, which have so often baffled anatomists. He 

 prepares the tissues by soaking them for some time in acidu- 

 lated water. He then acts on the specimens with strong 

 nitric acid ; this, he says, stains the nerve-fibres, and not the 

 adjacent structures. Preparations made in this way lead him 

 to believe that the nerve-fibres are not simply coiled round 

 the cone-like corpuscle, but absolutely enter its substance, 

 and penetrate it. 



We shall shortly notice M. Rouget's observations more 

 fully, since he has recently published them, illustrated by 

 two plates, in the * Archives de Physiologic,' a publication 

 which we are glad to see has just made its appearance under 

 the distinguished direction of MM. Brown-Sequard, Charcot, 

 and Vulpian. 



" Development of Bacteria " — IM . Bechamp,in a note,Avhich 

 was read to the Academic on May 4, entered into a long- 

 account of the developmental relaticms of Bacteria and Micro- 

 zjniata. Indeed he considered the latter to be the first stage 



