POINTS IN MINUTE STRUCTURE OF PANCREAS. 183 



On some Points in the Minute Structure of the 



Pancreas. 



Heneage Gibbes, i9I,]>., 



Lecturer uii Physiology and on Normal and Morbid Histology, in the Medical 

 School of the Westminster Hospital. 



With Plate XVI, figs. 1, 2 and 3. 



In the pancreas of the rabbit Kuhne and Lea have des- 

 cribed accumulations of cells between the alveoli having a 

 distinct blood supply. I have examined the pancreas in a 

 large number of animals, such as dog, cat, guinea pig and 

 ape, and I find that these agglomerations of cells are constant 

 in all of them. 



They lie amongst the alveoli in contact with them, but are 

 not mixed indiscriminately with them. I have found in some 

 parts a trace of fine connective tissue on their periphery, but 

 nothing like a distinct capsule separating them from the 

 surrounding alveoli. 



Their peculiar arrangement is shown in PL XIV, fig. 1. 



Each agglomeration consists of a number of polyhedral 

 cells, each cell having a distinct nucleus; this nucleus is of 

 irregular shape and stains very deeply. 



The substance of each cell is filled with a very fine net- 

 work of fibrils (PL XIV, fig. 2). Each mass consists of cells 

 and capillary blood-vessels. I have not been able to find any- 

 thing corresponding to centro-acinar cells amongst them, 

 although they occur in all the surrounding alveoli. The blood 

 supply is very marked, each mass of cells having a distinct 

 capillary plexus, as has already been described by Kuhne and 



