168 DR. E. KLEIN. -^ 



Tbere are several interesting appearances connected with the sperma- 

 tozoa of newt's testis prepared in this manner which I shall have occasion 

 to describe at a future time, but one I wish to mention already here on ac- 

 count of its very great distinctness and also on account of the great 

 facility with which the preparations may be obtained and preserved. If 

 after staining the testis in picro- carmine a small particle of its interior, 

 after having been teased out with needles, is mounted in a drop of glycerine, 

 we notice an innumerable mass of isolated spermatozoa, each of which 

 possesses a fine but distinct spiral filament coiled round the whole element — 

 head, middle section and tail ; the spiral thread begins near the anterior 

 pointed extremity, is most distinct round the middle section and tail, and 

 terminates at a short distance from the end of this latter ; it is not distinct 

 on the thick part of the head. 



{h) The connective tissue between the seminal tubes of the 

 testis contains peculiar epithelial-like cells, which have been 

 known to all who have investigated the testis. They have been 

 generally described (v. Ebner, Hofmeister, and others) as con- 

 nective-tissue cells of the interstitial tissue. Waldeyer^ regards 

 them as a peculiar kind of connective-tissue cells which he calls 

 plasma-cells. Mihalkovic/ who accepts Waldeyer's interpre- 

 tation, has described them very fully in the testis of the various 

 domestic animals. Harvey^ regards them as belonging to the 

 nervous system, i.e. as ganglion cells. 



As is well known, they occur in considerable numbers — chiefly 

 as forming anastomosing tracts — in the testis of cat, dog, and espe- 

 cially guinea-pig. Their shape is generally that of a polyhedral 

 cell, being more or less uniformly pressed against one another ; 

 their nucleus is spherical. The substance of these cells is not 

 a " granular" protoplasm, as usually described, but an exquisite 

 network of fibrils. In sections of testis of cat or dog (hardened 

 in our mixture of chromic acid and spirit), stained in logwood, 

 this network appears with great distinctness, its meshes being 

 relatively open. In figure 14 a I have represented very faithfully 

 this appearance. The intracellular network is, however, much 

 denser in the cells of testis prepared with 5 per cent, solution of 

 chromate of ammonia and subsequently stained in picrocarmine ; 

 it is represented of guinea pig's testis in fig. 14 b. 



The nucleus of these cells contains in all instances the ordinary 

 network of fibrils in connection with the intracellular network 

 In the case of the testis hardened in chromic acid and spirit, 

 the nucleus of most of the cells in question contains one or even 

 two central or excentric larger particles included in the network. 

 In specimens prepared with chromate of ammonia most of the 

 nuclei contain an uniform network without any large particles. 

 The intracellular network is very beautifully shown in the pecu- 



1 ' Archiv f. Pathol. Anatom.,' 1872. 



2 'Eerjchted. Math. Phys. Klasse d. Konigl. SachsiscKen Gesellsch. d. 

 Wiss.,' July, 1873. 



.? Harvey, It. T., ' Centralblatt f. d. Med, Wiss.,' 1875, No. 30, p. 498. 



