COBPOBA AMYLACEA. 59 



tions, to be intimately united with the nitrogenized substance, 

 presenting one of the exceptions to the general law that fats 

 exist in the body, uncombined, except with each other. In 

 tliis mass of fatty matter, we can determine the presence of 

 oleine, margarine, and stearine ; but these are combined with 

 other fats, fatty acids, etc., the remarkable peculiarity of most 

 of which is, that they contain a certain proportion of phos- 

 phorus. These peculiar principles have received a variety 

 of names, as they have been described more or less minutely 

 by different observers, such as cerebrine, white and red 

 phosphorized fat, lecithene, cerebric acid, and cerebrate of 

 soda. The application of most of these names is very indefi- 

 nite, and when we say that the substances are, in greatest 

 part, peculiar to the nervous tissue, and that they contain 

 phosphorus, we have stated about all that is physiologically 

 important. Lecithene is a neutral phosphorized fat, proba- 

 bly composed of a number of different fatty principles, which 

 exists, not only in the nervous substance, but in the blood, 

 bile, 1 and the yolk of egg. 3 Its chemical history has no 

 physiological interest. The same may be said of cerebric 

 acid, the cerebrate of soda, oleo-phosphoric acid and its com- 

 pounds with soda and lime. 



Corpora Amylacea. Little rounded or ovoid bodies, about 

 j-sVcr of an inch in diameter, have been described by Yir- 

 chow and others 3 as existing normally in the corpora stria ta, 

 the medulla oblongata, and some other portions of the 

 cerebro-spinal system. With regard to the actual compo- 

 sition of these bodies, there is considerable difference of 

 opinion. Yirchow and many others regard them as identi- 

 cal with starch, the granules of which they certainly resemble 

 very closely, being of the same shape, with borders well 



1 See voL iii., Excretion, p. 262. 



8 LITTRE ET ROBIN, Dictionnaire de medecine, Paris, 1865, Article, Lecithene. 

 8 VIRCHOW, Cellular Pathology, Philadelphia, 1863, p. 320. 

 , Human Physiology, Philadelphia, 1867, p. 66. 



