The Minute Anatomy of Tivo Cases of Cancer. 117 
walls and to trace the continuity of the cancer cylinders with normal 
lymphatics lined by their characteristic epithelium. At the time 
the foregoing case was investigated his monograph had not yet 
reached me ; since reading it I have caused sections of several other 
carcinomatous tumours to be treated with silver, by Dr. E. M. Schaeffer, 
one of the assistants at the Museum. In several instances results 
were obtained approximating those described by Koester, but they 
have not yet been sufficiently complete to justify me in forming a 
definite opinion. I hope to make this matter the subject of a future 
report. In the meantime, however, I cannot but admit the close cor- 
respondence between the outlines of the plexus of nucleated cylinders 
and the network obtained when the lymphatic capillaries are injected. 
And I may add that the general features of the morbid growths, 
above described, viz. a network of nucleated cylinders, interlacing 
with a connective-tissue stroma, are to be observed in quite a number 
of the sections of carcinomatous growths preserved in the Museum. 
In none of these cases, however, have I as yet been able to satisfy 
myself with Koester of the existence of a lumen in the central part 
of the nucleated cylinders, nor am I convinced that the normal 
lymphatic capillaries, lined by an epithelium, are alone capable of 
being transformed into the cancer cylinders. Much more probable 
does it appear to me that all the lymphatic spaces of the con- 
nective tissue are susceptible of this transformation, which would 
at once account for the voluminous character of the pathological 
network. 
The presence or absence of cell walls in the protoplasm, through 
which the nuclei of the cancer cylinders are distributed, does not 
appear to me an essential point. Marked cell walls can be observed 
in the cylinders of several epithelial cancers in the Museum collec- 
tion. On the other hand, Koester himself mentions that at times 
he found cylinders in which the nuclei were imbedded in a granular 
protoplasm in which no cell walls could be observed. 
In the present state of our knowledge we may perhaps regard 
the cell wall as an indication of a comparatively advanced stage in 
the history of the individual cell, which at first consists merely of a 
nucleus surrounded by a mass of protoplasm. There seems then no 
difficulty in agreeing with Koester to regard such nucleated cylinders 
as I have described above as composed of cells too young to be pos- 
sessed of walls, and placed in such close juxtaposition that no line 
of demarcation can be observed between the protoplasm of the 
several elements. 
As to the mode in which the cells of these cancer cylinders arise, 
however, I find greater difficulties. I am not satisfied either by my 
own examinations or by the study of Koester ’s paper that they can 
be justly considered the progeny of the lymphatic endothelium. A 
