golCtI bodies of tumour cells 377 



degeneration of the cells concerned. The moment, in which the 

 disintegration of the apparatus begins, appears to vary within 

 wide limits and for causes which are beyond our present means 

 of observation. However, changes of the apparatus are on the 

 whole noticed when the external aspect and structure of the 

 cells seem otherwise unaltered. After this initial phase a period 

 follows during which portions and fragments of the apparatus 

 continue to be recognized until the extreme degree of cell 

 degeneration is reached. This is in agreement with previous 

 observations on growing transplantable tumours (7) and with 

 the results obtained by other authors in different fields of 

 investigation. It corroborates the suggestion resulting from 

 Bowen's recent work (4, 5) that the apparatus plays perhaps 

 an important role in the economy of the cell, though we 

 must confess with him our ignorance as to the exact nature 

 of this role. 



A second point deserving brief discussion is the different 

 behaviour of the apparatus during the absorption of different 

 tumours. In some of them, as in certain connective-tissue 

 cells, it soon becomes transformed into a granular material 

 which, though persisting during cell degeneration, no longer 

 possesses any definite structure ; in others this terminal 

 disintegration is reached through stages during which it either 

 swells into peculiar shapes or breaks into fragments and pieces 

 which are for a time endowed with certain distinctive features. 

 In certain cases it even passes through a sort of hypertrophic 

 condition which, in the material examined, could not be more 

 closely studied. These phenomena are probably influenced, 

 if not determined, by the different structure of the apparatus 

 in the healthy cells of the tumours investigated, and confirm 

 the opinion previously expressed as to the existence of a well- 

 defined relation between the apparent structural type and the 

 mode of being of the apparatus in the living cells. 



The disintegration of the apparatus during the spontaneous 

 absorption of certain tumours has a parallel in the observations 

 made by other authors and myself under different pathological 

 or physiological conditions. For instance, the breaking up of 



