GLYCOGENIC INFILTRATION 435 



seems to be little doubt that it is infiltrated from outside the cell, 

 and not formed directly from degenerated protein. It seems to be 

 deposited only in cells that are still living, although it can become 

 split up in dead cells. All cells, but especially muscle-cells and 

 leucocytes, seem able to lay up glycogen in visible amounts under cer- 

 tain conditions. In inflamed areas glycogen is found in both ti-ssue- 

 cells and- leucocytes, but not in cells showing nuclear degeneration 

 (Best, Gierke). In pneumonia the leucocytes of the exudate, and 

 to a less extent the alveolar epithelium, contain glycogen as well as 

 fat. In tubercles glycogen is found in the cells which contain ba- 

 cilli, and it is generally present in the epithelioid cells, rarely in giant 

 cells, not at all in lymphoid cells or in the necrotic elements (De- 

 vaux). Liver glycogen is altered most in poisoning, being reduced 

 by phosphorus, arsenic, chloroform, HgCU, and many other poisons; 

 the amount is reduced when death from any cause is slow, or when 

 putrefaction has occurred, but it is increased in carbon monoxide 

 poisoning (Alassari).^^ In rabbits, at least, it is deposited in the liver 

 first about the central vein, and in fasting animals it disappears first 

 from the periphery. ^^ It seems to have a marked protective effect in 

 phosphorus poisoning. ^^ 



Glycogen in Tumors. — Glycogen has been observed frequently 

 in tumors. Brault believed the quantity an index of rate of growth, 

 on the principle that glycogen appears most abundantly in embryonal 

 tissues, and therefore in tumors the amount of glycogen should agree 

 with the degree to which the cells have gone back to the embryonic 

 tj'pe. Lubarsch considered that only tissues normally containing 

 glj^cogen give rise to glycogen-containing tumors. Gierke could cor- 

 roborate neither of these ideas, and considers that glycogen appears in 

 tumors under exactly the same conditions in which it appears in other 

 tissues; i. e., when cell nutrition and oxidation are impaired. Ap- 

 parently, however, both the embryonic origin and local retrogressive 

 changes determine the deposition of glycogen in tumors. Glycogen 

 is particularly abundant in squamous epithelium of epitheliomas that 

 have gone on to hornification;^'^'' in testicular tumors, hyperneph- 

 romas, parathyroid tumors (Langhans),^^ endotheliomas, chondromas, 

 and mj^omas, and it also occurs in the connective tissues surrounding 

 tumors. Of 1544 tumors of all sorts examined by Lubarsch, ^^ 447 

 (or 29 per cent.) contained glycogen microscopically; fibromas, oste- 

 omas, gliomas, hemangiomas were always free from glycogen; and 

 lipomas and lymphangiomas nearly always. Adenomas are almost 



" Gaz. degli Ospedali, 1906 (27), 537. 



" Ishimori, Biochem. Zeit., 1913 (48), 332. 



9« See Simonds, Arch. Int. Med., 1919 (23), 362. 



■^^^ In mouse tumors Haaland found glycogen only in squamous cell carcinoma, 

 and in the connective tissue surrounding other tumors (Jour. Path, and Bact., 

 1908 (12), 439). 



^' Virchow's Arch., 1907 (189), 138. 



"ss Virchow's Arch., 1906 (183), 188. 



