156 REGINALD JAMES LUDFORD 



yolk in the oocyte of the Mollusc Patella. It would seem 

 possible, therefore, that the spreading out of the apparatus 

 in the follicle cells of an insect might be related to the high 

 degree of metabolism existing in such cells. 



Chun, quoted by Nakahara, regarded the division of the 

 nucleus in amitosis as a means of increasing the nuclear surface 

 as an aid to metabolic interchange between nucleus and 

 cytoplasm ; while Flemming pointed out that amitosis was 

 especially associated with intense secretive and assimilatory 

 activity, but he considers such cells as being on the way to 

 degeneration (2). Eecent work has shown that fragmentation 

 of the nucleus does occur in pathological growths, in cells 

 subject to faulty nutritive conditions, and in tissue cultures 

 which have been left unattended for some time. Such frag- 

 mentation is regarded by Macklin (8) as an altogether different 

 phenomenon from amitosis, but in the past there is no doubt 

 that there has been confusion between the two. 



Nakahara, who has made an investigation into the subject 

 of amitosis in adipose cells of insects and an extensive survey 

 of the literature of the subject, concluded that ' amitosis, 

 occurring in secreting or reserve forming cells and in other 

 cells of similar activity, may be for the purpose of securing 

 an increase of the nuclear sm'face to meet the physiological 

 necessity due to the active metabolic interchanges between the 

 nucleus and cytoplasm. Apparently it is not a method of cell 

 multiplication nor a sign of degeneration or senescence of cells, 

 but, whenever it occurs, it seems to indicate an intense activity 

 in the vegetative functions of the cell ' (11). It is altogether 

 in accordance with om- present knowledge of the Golgi apparatus 

 to assume that in such cells, as for example the follicle cells of 

 insects' ovaries, the dictyosomes scattered in the cytoplasm 

 would play a by no means unimportant part in the lipoid 

 metabolism. 



In conclusion, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to 

 Professor J. Bronte Gatenby, of Trinity College, Dubhn, for 

 his kindness in reading through the manuscript of this 

 paper. 



