272 PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



Similar forms may also be encountered in the lungs of rabbits rendered 

 cedematous by a clip placed on tbe aorta ascendens, and even in pieces 

 of perfectly fresh lung immersed either in serum or in some other 

 iudiiferent fluid. On the other hand, such cells are never met with in 

 healthy lungs, if immediately after removal from the body they are 

 immersed in alcohol, or if the bronchife are injected with glycerine- 

 gum. In such cases the cells lining the alveoli present their normal 

 aspect. Hence it may be faii'ly concluded that these large cell- 

 elements represent the normal cells lining the alveoli swollen by the 

 imbibition of a watery fluid, and as their formation is due to purely 

 passive conditions, he is not disposed to believe that they play any 

 important or active role in the inflammatory processes as some have 

 maintained. In the later stages of the pneumonia caused by section 

 of the vagus — that is to say, about the twelfth hour — Friedlander 

 found, in addition to the above, a large number of lymph-like cor- 

 puscles, which for tlie most part possessed many nuclei, not only in 

 the cavity of the alveoli, but in the connective tissue surrounding the 

 vessels and bronchite, whilst the tissue of the septa was tolerably free 

 from them. At the same time white blood-corpuscles accumulated in 

 the layer of blood lying next to the wall of the small arteries and 

 veins, and these, or the lymph-like cells, escaping into the cavity of 

 the alveoli, converted the whole lung-tissue into a compact, dense 

 mass, from which sections could be readily made. After a little while 

 the lymj^hoid elements and swollen epithelial cells underwent fatty 

 degeneration, a sufiicient proof that the latter do not actively partici- 

 pate in the inflammatory process. 



Papers on the Structure of the Internal Ear. — Some papers of great 

 interest are briefly recorded in a late number of the ' Medical Eecord.' 

 They seem to be taken from the same number (No. 3, 1873) of the 

 ' Monatshrift fiir Ohrenheilkunde.' The first is by Gustav Brunnen, 

 who says that on examining the articulations of the incus alike with 

 the malleus and the stapes, he finds that they are scarcely to be regarded 

 as joints properly so called ; but that they have a peculiar construc- 

 tion, a fibro-cartilaginous substance being interposed, to which the 

 cartilage-covered surfaces of the bones on each side are more or less 

 continuously attached. The second is by E. Tuckerkandl, who finds 

 a small arteria stapedia constant in man ; it is a branch of the stylo- 

 mastoid, and passes through a triangular ojiening in the Fallojjiau 

 canal, where it runs above the fenestra ovalis, penetrates the mem- 

 brana obturatoria of the stapes, and is distributed on the promontory, 

 often anastomosing with the artery that accompanies Jacobson's 

 nerve. It is injected from the external carotid, while the other 

 vessels of the tympanum are not. The third is by Professor Rudinger, 

 who brings his own experience to prove that the Eustachian tube is 

 habitually closed. On swallowing during a lecture, he felt the usual 

 sensation in the ears, followed on the right side by a peculiar cramp- 

 like sensation. His own voice sounded louder and of a different 

 timbre, and even painfully loud, so that, though interested in watch- 

 ing the condition, he was compelled at last to perform another act of 

 swallowing, when the whole condition ceased. He ascribes it to a 



