PATHOLOGICAL APPEARANCES OF MYELITIS. 839 
noticed in regard to colloid bodies generally, while the 
occasional appearance of faintly marked concentric rings was 
not inconsistent with their being identical. A little closer 
examination, however, enabled one to see a still further and 
more remarkable development which they underwent, 
especially in the neighbourhood of greatest inflammation, 
namely, that they lost their translucency, became transparent 
and granular, and that several nuclei formed in their interior. 
In fig. 4 is shown the formation of one of these large granular 
corpuscles. It is seen separating from the parent mass, 7.e. 
from the contracted axis-cylinder, which latter shows a hollow 
space corresponding to the portion which has been lost. 
These corpuscles now presented the appearance of ‘‘mother- 
cells,” with numerous young cells in their interior (fig. 5). 
Last of all, in places where the inflammation had gone on to 
suppuration, these “ mother-cells ” were broken down, and 
the younger cells in their interior were set free as pus-cor- 
puscles (fig.5). Where the inflammation was not so acute the 
divided portions of the original axis-cylinders evidently 
remained as colloid-looking bodies resembling those seen in 
locomotor ataxia and other chronic nervous affections. 
Changes in the Nerve-cells. 
The most common occurrence which was noticed in these 
was a swelling or molecular transformation of the cell 
substance, by which its outline became indistinct. It 
was soon converted into a molecular mass, in which the 
nucleus usually remained for some time, finally, however, 
undergoing a similar degeneration. This is a condition 
which has been frequently described, and has been’called by 
Meynert an cedematous affection of the nerve-cell. In no 
instance was fissiparous division of the nerve-cell noticed, 
but almost invariably the degeneration above described 
was present. In one instance there was a defined area 
about a line in length at a certain spotin the grey substance 
in which all the nerve-cells were so affected, and at the outer 
part of this area, where the degeneration was more advanced, 
their granular débris had disappeared, leaving a coarse net- 
work produced by the empty spaces, blood-vessels, and neur- 
oglia. Swellings were seen on the processes of certain of the 
nerve-cells similar to what were seen in the medullary nerve- 
tubes.1 
‘ Meynert has noticed such a lesion in syphilitic brains, 
