154 EXUDATIONS. 



appear to be that of dissolving the cell-wall in water containing 

 hydrochloric acid, and exhibiting the matrix in a similar manner 

 as with muscle-fibrin ; but this apparently practicable method 

 of dilution with water and decantation, which, according to the 

 above reactions, indicates no difficulties at the first glance, is found 

 to fail most entirely on being tried, and we are still ignorant of any 

 other method of removing the serum of the pus, without dissolving 

 the investing membrane. 



It may appear a very simple matter to isolate the substance of 

 the nuclei, but even in this respect our expectations are not 

 realised, for when we attempt to dissolve the cell-walls by means 

 of dilute mineral acids or concentrated solutions of organic acids, 

 we are scarcely ever able to succeed in completely dissolving the 

 capsules of all the corpuscles, whilst, moreover, some portion of 

 the viscid contents always remains undissolved in the form of fine 

 molecules, which cannot altogether be regarded as fat, since they 

 cannot be made to disappear when treated with ether. The great 

 difficulty of obtaining the nuclei in a pure state consists, however, 

 in the complete impossibility of separating the undissolved 

 particles by filtration or decanting. When treated with concen- 

 trated nitric or sulphuric acid, or with chromic acid, the material 

 of the nuclei exhibits reactions, which seem to place it in the 

 group of the protein-bodies, whilst the difficulty of its solution in 

 concentrated alkalies, and the facility with which it dissolves in 

 dilute caustic alkalies even more rapidly than the cell-walls, seem 

 rather to show that this substance possesses considerable affinity 

 with the nuclei of the cells of the horny tissue. 



We are unable to decide anything regarding the chemical 

 nature of the nucleoli, for when the cyto'id corpuscles are digested 

 with dilute alkalies till their distinctive character can no longer be 

 recognised, there remain, as we have already observed, more or 

 less deeply tinged molecules, among which the nucleoli may 

 possibly be present. On treating these masses with ether, a 

 portion of the punctated mass disappears, but individual 

 granules are still visible.^ But we are unable to decide whether 

 these are the. remains of the granules which were previously visible, 

 or whether they have been separated by the ether; and hence we 

 do not know whether the original molecular granules consist entirely 

 or only in part of fine fat-granules. If we treat the nuclei, which 

 have been obtained from pus by digestion with acetic acid and 

 subsequent decantation (as far as this is practicable,) with a not 

 too dilute solution of potash, we find that there is formed, on 



