On Connective Tissue, Nerve, and Muscle. 515 



" A Contribution to the Anatomy of Connective Tissue, Nerve, 

 and Muscle, with special reference to their connexion with 

 the Lymphatic System/' By G. THIN, M.D. Communi- 

 cated by Professor HUXLEY, Sec. U.S. Received April 22, 

 1874*. 



I published in the ' Lancet ' of the 14th February of this year a paper 

 entitled " On the Lymphatic System of the Cornea," in which I endea- 

 voured to show that the canals in that structure in which the nerves lie 

 communicate with the lacunae, that the straight canals and lacunae are 

 connected by means of a continuous layer of flat cells, the margins of 

 which are indicated by the well-known action of nitrate of silver, and 

 that these cells are not the anastomosing so-called cornea-corpuscles, but 

 that the flat cells line the lacuna, while the branched cells fill the cavity. 



I have lately undertaken a series of further investigations on the same 

 subject. 



In order to corroborate the results yielded me by the nitrate of silver, 

 I availed myself of the well-known property which haernatoxylin pos- 

 sesses of specially staining the nuclei of cells. I allow the cornea to 

 remain in the solution until it is perfectly saturated. Subsequent mace- 

 ration in acetic acid removes the haernatoxylin from the fibrillary sub- 

 stance before it bleaches the nuclei. On comparing a cornea so treated 

 with successful preparations of the cornea-corpuscles as obtained by 

 chloride of gold, it is found that the number of cells demonstrated by 

 the haematoxylin exceeds by several times that found in the gold prepara- 

 tion, affording direct proof of the existence of other cells in the cornea 

 than those known as the cornea-corpuscles. 



If a vertical section of the cornea is so treated by haeniatoxylin and 

 acetic acid, in many of the clefts in the fibrillary substance, in which, as 

 is well known, the cornea-corpuscles are situated, several nuclei are seen, 

 proving in another way the existence of a greater number of cells than 

 those hitherto accepted by anatomists. 



But in addition to the proof afforded by staining the nuclei of the 

 cells, I have, by the application of a new method, been able to isolate 

 (and thus demonstrate beyond all further possibility of doubt their exist- 

 ence in the cornea) a large number of cellular elements, the varied size 

 and shape of which distinguish them not only from the cornea-corpuscles, 

 but from any anatomical structures that have been as yet described. 



If a cornea is placed in a saturated solution of caustic potash, at a 

 temperature between 105 and 115 Fahrenheit, it is reduced, in a few 

 minutes, to a white granulated mass of about a fourth of its previous 

 bulk. In a small piece of the diminished cornea, broken down with a 

 needle and examined under the microscope in the same fluid, it is found 

 that the only visible elements are a great number of cells. If the con- 

 * Bead June 18, 1874. See ante, p. 380. 



TOL. XXII. 2 K 



