22 
PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
interfibrillary space. (This is the only form in which the author has 
seen the processes of the stellate cells in inflamed cornese in gold pre- 
parations. They are usually invisible by that process.) 
Appearances indicative of a dividing nucleus were rarely seen, and 
their interpretation is doubtful. Both in respect to the nucleus and 
the processes the stellate cells are the most stable of all the cellular 
elements of the cornea. 
Between the layers of the superficial corneal epithelium a network 
of stellate cells can be seen in serum preparations of inflamed cornea. 
Indications of similar cells can be seen in gold and haematoxylin prepa- 
rations of the healthy cornea. 
In inflammation the cells of this network show a very great increase 
in size as compared with their appearance in health. 
The changes produced by inflammation in the spindle-cells may 
be divided into three stages : 
(a) Preparations examined in serum show that the cell-protoplasm 
has become increased in amount, and that the cell-processes can be 
distinctly traced. This stage can be observed after twelve hours’ 
inflammation, resulting from slight cauterization in a winter frog. 
The swelling of the protoplasm is often confined to one or more tracts 
of the cornea, one of the above-mentioned clefts separating the area 
of this appearance from that of the normal cornea. The area extends 
from the neighbourhood of the cauterized part towards the limbus. 
(b) The swelling of the protoplasm extends along the processes 
from one cell to the other, a chain of spindle-cells being often repre- 
sented by a long column of protoplasm on which there are very slight 
constrictions. This description applies to osmic acid preparations. 
Deep staining with red aniline and subsequent treatment with acetic 
acid renders the nuclei visible in this pi*otoplasmic column. This 
stage is well seen in osmic acid preparations of a rabbit’s cornea which 
has been twenty-four hours inflamed by the passing of a thread. 
(c) With more or less increase in the amount of protoplasm, and 
with or without its presence in the processes in a granular form, nuclear 
bodies (resulting from a division of the nucleus) are seen in osmic acid 
preparations to be contained in, or partly expelled from, the cell, which 
are identical in appearance with the red blood-corpuscles seen in the 
new vessels in the same preparations. This identity in appearance is 
further maintained by staining osmic acid preparations with red 
aniline, in which the nuclear products and red blood-corpuscles are 
stained a like tint and deeper than the other elements. The author 
infers from these appearances that in inflammation the nuclei become 
free bodies, which are equivalent to red blood-corpuscles. 
The appearances described by Key and Wallis, Cohnheim, and 
others as white corpuscles in “ Spindelform,” are seen in osmic acid 
preparations to be spindle-cells made more prominent by inflammation. 
The “ spiessartige Figuren” seen in gold preparations are produced 
by the protoplasm which immediately surrounds the nuclei of the 
spindle-cells being visible, whilst from the mode of preparation the 
connecting processes are invisible. 
White blood-cells in the inflamed cornea can be identified with 
