SFXT. 167.] MALPIGHIAN CORPUSCLES. 363 



be designated glandular follicles. The supposition of many 

 authors, old and recent, that these bodies are connected with 

 Lymphatic vessels, although probable, has not, hitherto, been esta- 

 blished. Gerlach formerly believed that they were the widened 

 commencements of the lymphatics; but since I discovered the 

 blood-vessels in their interior, he has given up tliis view, and 

 explains the corpuscles as being of the nature of lymphatic glands. 

 Such interpretations would have greater claims to be received, if 

 the relations of the corpuscles to the lymphatics were demon- 

 strated j but this, I must still affirm, lias not hitherto been done 

 with precision. Even Gerlach' s own injections, and his most 

 recent description of lymphatic vessels given off from the cor- 

 puscles (Handb., 2nd edit., p. 244), do not appear conclusive, any 

 more than the earlier enquiries of Evans, Schaffner, and others. 

 I myself am also disposed to class the Malpighian corpuscles with 

 the lymphatic glands ; but, it must be owned, that a complete iden- 

 tification of the two is impossible, for the Malpighian corpuscles never 

 have lymphatic vessels leading to them. If, however, such vessels 

 should hereafter be shown to exist in their interior, or to proceed 

 from their surface, I should then regard the Malpighian bodies as 

 a peculiar kind of simple terminal lymphatic glands, in which the 

 colourless blood corpuscles are formed, in the same manner as in 

 the complex glands in the course of the lymphatic vessels. — It is 

 the opinion of Lei/dig, from researches on the lower animals, that 

 the blood-vessels of the spleen are surrounded by lymphatics, and 

 that the Malpighian bodies are only expansions of these. This 

 view has assuredly no application in higher animals, for in them 

 the corpuscles are closely fitted to the arteries that carry them, 

 and there is no trace of any enveloping lymphatic canal. 



Malpighian bodies are found in all mammalia and birds, wherever they 

 have been sought. They are less constant in the class of reptiles, true Mal- 

 pighian bodies never being found in the naked amphibia. In fishes, I have 

 pointed out certain vesicles which Leydig considers as the representatives of 

 Malpighian bodies, but which generally contain blood-globules only, and 

 rarely cells. The Plagiostomous order alone have true undeniable Malpighian 

 bodies. Hence J. Midler's opinion is not confirmed, that Malpighian cor- 

 puscles exist in all vertebrate animals ; a point not without its importance, 

 when wo attempt to estimate their physiological significance. — In some of 

 the lower mammalia, the Malpighian bodies contain, though not uniformly, 

 disintegrated blood-corpuscles of the same form as will be presently described 

 in the spleen-pulp. 



