ON LYMPH-CORPUSCLES IN THE LYMPHATIC VESSELS. 291 



mixture is left to itself for a few minutes, most of the cor- 

 puscles lose their colour entirely, scarcely anything remaining 

 visible except the nuclei. If the changes are followed more 

 closely, the corpuscles will be seen at first to become wrinkled, 

 in which condition also many remain for a long time ; but this 

 is succeeded by a stage, in which they become smaller and 

 rounded, and perhaps also throw out a few rounded protru- 

 sions, until at last they are rendered quite pale. On the 

 prolonged action of common salt, the corpuscles may often be 

 seen surrounded with a complete cloud of liberated particles 

 of hcematin, and it would even seem that the cells frequently 

 disappear altogether under the energetic influence of the con- 

 centrated solution. 



From the above it is allowable to regard the whole pheno- 

 menon as one of a physical nature, and to assume that, as 

 dilute solutions remove the colour of the blood-corpuscles by 

 endosmosis, so do concentrated solutions produce the same 

 effect by causing an excessive exosmotic current from the 

 blood-cells into the surrounding fluid The very energetic 

 action of urea, may perhaps be explained by the high value 

 of the endosmotic equivalent of that substance, with respect 

 to which I hope at some future time to be able to communi- 

 cate more precise observations. 



NoTicK respecting the Occurrence of Lymph-Corpuscles in the 

 commencements of the Lymphatic Vessels. By A. Kolliker. 

 (Zeitsch. f. Wiss. Zool., vol. vii,, p. 182.) 



The recent researches of Virchow on the one hand, and of 

 Briicke, Donders, and myself on the other, have shown that 

 the lymphatic glands are the principal seat of origin of the 

 cellaeform elements of the chyle. The further question arises, 

 as to whether lymph^^ells are formed in other situations 

 besides those organs, and particularly, whether the inde- 

 pendent formation of such cells, in the commencement of the 

 lacteals, which has recently been almost universally assumed, 

 be really deducible from well-ascertained facts. This question 

 is of the greater interest, that the formation of lymph-cells in 

 the commencement of lymphatics has hitherto been regarded 

 as one of the most certain instances of the formation of cells 

 around isolated nuclei contained in a fluid, whilst the more 

 recent results of histological inquiries have tended more and 

 more to limit the occurrence of a free cell-formation inde- 

 pendent of pre-existing cells. Consideration of the foregoing 

 facts, would certainly, at first sight, appear to vender the 



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