134 REPORT— 1850. 
evolyed in the whole as motion. Motion amongst individual cells is the invariable 
accompaniment of their growth and subdivision, and the reaction of the cells on each 
‘other is the commencement of motion in separate regions of the whole tissue, and also 
in the entire body of the embryo. Motion thus generated in individual cells during 
the earlier stages of formation of the embryo, through heat-force derived from without, 
becomes a fixed or inherent power, a vital force in one structure, muscular tissue, 
while the same force from without may be evolved as light in another. In the egg of 
the glow-worm, Lampyris, the cells in a portion of the foundation layer, instead of 
forming muscular or nervous tissue, retain to a great extent their primary individuality, 
and evolve their vital force as Jight. The author has seen light emitted from the lu- 
minous organs at the moment the embryo is escaping from the egg shell. To the 
objection that may be urged that this light may be simply that of combustion rather 
than a form of vital force, he remarks that the light of the glow-worm is excited to 
greater vividness, not only by increased temperature of the surrounding medium, 
and an acceleration of the respiratory and circulatory processes, as well as by immer- 
sion in oxygen, but also by mechanical irritation of the animal, and consequent 
excitement of nervous force. In this respect, then, the production of light by the 
glow-worm, he remarks, seems to bear analogy with the evolution of electricity 
through mechanical and other modes of exciting nervous force in the electrical fishes ; 
and that force derived from without in the form of heat, seems thus to be converted 
through organization into vital force, and evolved as muscular contractility, light, 
electricity, or nervous power. 
----- 
On the supposed relation of the Spleen to the origin of the Coloured Blood- 
Corpuscle in the Adult. By Joun S. SANDERSON, Emer. Pres. of the 
Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. 
The inquiries, of which the results are detailed in the paper, were undertaken with 
a view of repeating and, if possible, verifying the results of several series of researches 
which have been brought forward by various continental physiologists as to the 
connexion of the spleen with the origin or disintegration of the coloured blood- 
corpuscle. 
It had been maintained by Dr. J. Gerlach (Henlé and Pfeufer’s Zeitschrift fir Ra- 
tionelle Medezin, band vii. s. 75, 1848; Handbuch der Gewebelehre, s. 216, 1849), 
as well as by Dr. Schaffner of Herrstein (band vii. s. 345 of the same Journal, 1849), 
that cells containing blood-discs in various stages of development were always to be 
found among the contents of the Malpighian corpuscles, On the other hand, it had 
been maintained by Prof. Kélliker (Ueber den Bau und die Verrichtungen der Milz; 
Mittheilungen der Ziiricher Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, 1847), by Dr. Ecker 
(Henlé’s Zeitschrift, band vi. 5. 261) as well as by Landis (Beitriige zur Lehre von 
den Verrichtungen der Milz, Zurich, 1847), that the special purpose of the spleen 
was the disintegration of the coloured blood-corpuscles, and that this was brought 
about by the aggregation of these bodies into rounded masses, and their subsequently 
breaking down into granular pigment, this process being effected with or without the 
enclosure of the masses in question in an apparent membrane, the seat of the process 
being, not the Malpighian sacculi or parenchyma, but the dilated veins of the organ. 
The conclusions which it is attempted to arrive at are— 
Ist, That cells containing blood-corpuscles never occur in the Malpighian sacculi 
of the spleen, and that the bodies which Dr. Gerlach described as such were more 
probably cells, which are here and there observed in that position, and which contain 
five or six round highly refractive nuclei, which resemble blood-discs somewhat in 
appearance. 
2nd. That the structures described by Kolliker as cells containing blood-corpuscles 
are similar (as he himself believes) to the so-called ‘‘inflammation-globules,” con- 
taining perfect blood-corpuscles which occur in the substance of the brain, and that 
they also correspond in nature and mode of production with the spherical cell-like 
bodies containing blood-corpuseles which occur in the area vasculosa of the cheek at 
an early period of incubation, and that all these forms are probably produced round 
masses of blood-corpucles in extravasated or stagnant blood. 
. 8rd. That wherever extravasation or retardation of the circulation occurs, the 
