THE ANATOMY OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT IN THE 

 SALMON. By G. Lovell Gulland, M.A., B.Sc, M.D., 

 F.E.C.P.E., Assistant Physician to the Royal Infirmary, Edin- 

 hurgh, etc. 



In the April number of the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 

 Dr Kingston Barton writes on the above subject, with the object 

 of proving my contention (Eeport to the Fishery Board for 

 Scotland of Investigations on the Life History of the Salmon in 

 Fresh Water, 1898) that the stomach and intestine of the salmon 

 in fresh water undergo a desquamative catarrh, to be erroneous. 

 In the first page of his paper he seems to contend that the fixing 

 of my specimens with perchloride of mercury had something to 

 do with the appearances described by me, while on the second 

 page he appears to maintain that these appearances are due to 

 post-mortem changes. 



Let me take these points in order. Dr Barton entirely over- 

 looks the fact that my normal salmon and trout viscera were also 

 fixed in sublimate, and that these presented not the slightest 

 appearance of desquamation (see my figures), and it is the uni- 

 versal experience of histologists that sublimate is one of the 

 best and most reliable of fixing agents. I have used it now 

 for every kind of tissue for sixteen years, and have always found 

 it a perfect fixative for epithelium, and in particular very 

 much to be preferred to the chromic acid solution which he 

 employed. 



His second contention appears to be more worthy of attention. 

 Are the changes which I described as a desquamative catarrh due 

 to ijost-mortem change, or are they alterations which occur 

 during life? On p. IG of my paper I discussed this question in 

 detail, and gave, as my reasons for believing the change to be ante- 

 mortem, the following facts : — 



(1) That the change is not entirely confined to the epithelium. 

 The connective tissue of the deeper parts of the mucous membrane 

 is hyaline, the stratum compactum swollen, the eosinophile leuco- 



