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TRANSLATIONS. 



On the Cellulose {in Animals) Question. By R. Virchow. 

 Arcliiv. f. pathol. Anatomie, ii. Physiologie, &c., vol. viii., 

 H. 1, p, 140. 



Since my former communications respecting the substance 

 met with in the human body resembling vegetable cellulose, 

 I have taken much pains to ascertain more precisely its 

 nature. In now recurring to the subject, it is not that I have 

 been altogether successful in the inquiry, but rather because I 

 perceive that it is becoming more and more involved in con- 

 fusion. There are some even who, whether from superficiality 

 or for other reasons, appear to regard what I have said, — as I 

 believe with sufficient distinctness — as unsaid, and have 

 busied themselves in associating with the amyloid bodies 

 described by me, bodies of all kinds, only morpJiologically 

 analogous with them. The reaction of iodine and sulphuric 

 acid having once been established, nothing can be described as a 

 corjnis amylaceum lohich does not exJiibit this reaction. At 

 most can such bodies be termed corpora amylacea spuria. 



To this class of false amyloid bodies, which have been 

 explained as true, belong — 



1. The brain-sand, noticed by Cohn (Bericht, iiber das 

 Allerheiligen-Hospital zu Breslau, 1854, p. 14). Except 

 that Busk (Quart. Jour. Mic. Sc, 1854, January, No, 6), in 

 one instance, under particular circumstances, found in the 

 corpus striatum calcareous bodies, whose external soft layer 

 assumed a peculiar reddish-yellow colour under iodine alone, 

 which induced him to compare it with the immature cellulose 

 of many plants, as of Hydrodictyon. 



2. Various gelatinous gramdes, which have of late been fre- 

 quently comprehended under the ambiguous name of " colloid 

 granules." Many of these are decidedly of an albuminous 

 nature, as I have said before (vol. vi., p. 580). It is possible 

 that the bodies described by Gunsberg (Zeitsch. f. Klin. 

 Med., v., p. 297) from a colloid tumour of the abdomen 

 belong to this class, although the description is not suffi- 

 ciently clear ; and in a cerebral tumour occurring at the same 

 time, arenaceous corpuscles are described as of an amyloid 

 nature. 



3. The concentric epidermis globides (globes epidermiques), 

 which are met with most abundantly in cancroid tumours. 



