338 SECRETION. 



cal examination, it presents numerous free nuclei and cells, 

 like those described in the Malpighian bodies ; but the nuclei 

 are here relatively much more abundant. In addition are 

 found, blood-corpuscles, white and red, some natural in 

 form and size, others more or less altered, with pigmentary 

 granules, both free and enclosed in cells. Anatomists have 

 attached a great deal of importance to large vesicles en- 

 closing what have been supposed by some to be blood-cor- 

 puscles, and by others to be pigmentary corpuscles. The 

 state of our knowledge on these points, however, is very 

 unsatisfactory. Some authorities deny the existence of the 

 so-called blood-corpuscle-containing cells. A writer in the 

 British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical JReview, in 1853, 

 after a thorough analysis of the various original observations 

 that had appeared up to that time, came to the conclusion 

 that the presence in the spleen-pulp of cells containing blood- 

 corpuscles in a transition state was extremely doubtful ; 1 and 

 Kolliker, who has investigated the structure of the spleen 

 with peculiar care, has advanced, in successive publications, 

 several entirely different opinions on the subject. 3 "We will 

 therefore abstain from a discussion of these disputed ques- 

 tions, which are at present of a character purely anatomical. 

 All that we can say of the spleen-pulp is, that it contains 

 cells, nuclei, blood-corpuscles, and pigmentary granules, with 

 a yellowish-red fluid ; and that it is intersected with micro- 

 scopic trabeculse of fibrous and muscular tissue, and a deli- 

 cate net-work of blood-vessels. It is difficult to determine 

 whether the blood-corpuscles come from vessels that have 

 been divided in making the preparation, or are really free 

 in the pulp ; or whether the free nuclei are normal or come 

 from cells that have been artificially ruptured. 



1 WHARTON JONES, British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review, London, 

 1853, vol. xi., p. 32. 



2 KOLLIKER, Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, London, 1847-1849, 

 vol. iv., p. 771, Article, Spleen. 



Manual of Human Microscopic Anatomy, London, 1860, p. 358, et seg. 



Handbuch der Gewebelehre des MenscJien, Leipzig, 1867, S. 448, et seq. 



