QUARTERLY CHRONICLE. 145 
Under these circumstances it sometimes occurred that, on the 
addition of water, the whole granular mass of such a cluster 
became transformed into a large sphere containing two, four, 
or more “nuclei.” The resulting body was to all appearance 
identical with shapes well known under the name of “ mother 
cells.” In all these cases the granular shred must have partly 
consisted of a viscid material, which; on imbibition, naturally 
assumed the spherical shape. Primary globules were sur- 
rounded by a secondary globule, and thus the typical “ cell ” 
was completed under the observer’s eye. In some instances 
the globules resulting from the transformation of the granular 
mass were at first bright and transparent, the granules having 
completely disappeared. They, however, gradually re-formed, 
showing at first molecular motion, then crowding more and 
more, till at last the whole mass seemed to undergo coagula- 
tion. Alternate liquefaction and coagulation of the same 
material was found to play an important part in the develop- 
ment of “ cells.” Masses of certain viscid materials do not, 
on imbibition, expand uniformly throughout their entire bulk, 
but globules of a definite size are emitted, as many as the 
mass will yield. The crystalline lens of many young animals 
affords, when treated with water, a beautiful illustration of 
this fact. Its homogeneous material is transformed, under 
the influence of imbibition, into a vast number of globules of 
nearly equal size. Hyaline embryonic tissues display, under 
similar conditions, the same phenomenon. Certain inferences 
lead one to suspect that this size-limiting property is due to 
the crystallizing propensity of some ingredient of these viscid 
substances. Blood-corpuscles (human blood-corpuscles at 
least) are evidently tiny lumps of a uniformly viscid material. 
When broken up into fragments, each fragment assumes the 
spherical shape. On slow imbibition, they often emit a clear 
sphere, or a segment of one. In various specimens of fcetal 
blood, each blood-corpuscle was seen to emit as many as two 
or even three equal-sized globules, the original corpuscle 
being at last no longer distinguishable from its descendants. 
This is sufficient proof of the uniformly viscous nature of the 
blood-corpuscles. In many cancers the most recently formed 
part consists of mere fibres. These after a time become 
“nucleated.” The “nuclei” are at first very elongated, this 
being due to the lateral pressure of the still fibrous texture. 
But as the mass gradually softens, the ovals expand more and 
more into spheres, forming the primary globules, round 
which, as has already been shown, a secondary globule is 
often seen to shape itself. Chemical differentiation transforms 
first one portion of the fibrous mass into viscid material. 
VOL. VII.—NEW SER. K 
