442 A. B. MACALLUM. 



considered the structures in question to belong to connective 

 tissue^ since they acted towards a solution of nickel oxide in 

 ammonia like the latter^ and as he found the same sort of fibrils 

 directly entering the lobules from the hepatic serosa. 



Kolatschewsky^ used two methods. In one, fine sections of 

 the liver were pencilled out and treated for ten to twenty 

 minutes with ^ — i per cent, solution of gold chloride ; these, 

 put in water acidified with acetic acid, were left there for one or 

 two weeks exposed to the light until they became coloured rose 

 violet. According to the other method, sections of liver hardened 

 with yq — iV P^** cent, solution of ammonium bichromate were 

 pencilled out and placed in a solution of the double chloride of 

 gold and sodium of the strength recommended by Gerlach. 

 The reduction is accomplished as in the first method. By these 

 methods he found deeply coloured fibres running in the interlobu- 

 lar spaces and entwining ultimately about the capillaries of the 

 lobules. Some of the fibrils end in the nuclei on the capillary 

 walls. The fibres branch, enter into the depth of the lobules, 

 and form there plexuses of fibrils running parallel to and around 

 the vascular channels. The smaller the capillaries the narrower 

 are the meshes of the plexus. Kolatschewsky was not certain 

 that these fibres are nerves, and he never saw their connection 

 with the hepatic cells, if such occurred. His results agree in 

 the main with those of Nesterowsky. 



Holbrook" made sections of the fresh liver when it was frozen, 

 which he left in a ^ per cent, solution of gold chloride for thirty 

 to forty minutes. The reduction of the gold was accomplished 

 with formic acid. In some cases he hardened the tissue first 

 of all with chromic acid, and then used the foregoing method. 

 He found the nerves in the portal canal provided with a large 

 number of nuclei and occurring usually in bundles of from 

 three to five fibres, which enter the lobules and branch at acute 

 angles along the capillary channels. The finest nerve-fibrillse 



^ "Beitrage zur Histologic der Leber," 'Arch, fiir Mikr. Anat.,' Bd. xiii, 

 p. 415. 



- " Tlie Termination of Nerves in the Liver," ' Proceedings American So- 

 ciety of Microscopists,' p. 95, 1882. 



