358 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



observed vessels in the cornea of a young Cat (fig. 297), which 

 I can scarcely regard as anything else than lymphatics. In 



Fig. 297. 



this instance, at the margin of the cornea, together with the 

 very distinct capillary loops containing blood-corpuscles, there 

 were numerous wider vessels (of 001 — 002'", or even 0*03'"), 

 which either extended singly into the cornea to the same dis- 

 tance as the blood-vessels, and terminated in dilated clavate 

 ends, or in acuminate points, or two, three, or more together, 

 formed simple loops, from which in like manner other csecal 

 processes were given off. Notwithstanding their capacity 

 these vessels presented a delicate, structureless coat, with scat- 

 tered, appressed nuclei, and contained a clear fluid, in which 

 frequently a few, and occasionally even a good many clear 

 spherical cells, exactly like lymph-corpuscles, were visible. If 

 I had found these vessels in other animals as well, I should 

 at once have declared them to be the commencements of the 

 lymphatics of the conjunctiva, but it appears to me, at present, 

 more prudent to regard this explanation perhaps as probable, 

 but not as certain. For although, in this one instance of the 

 Cat, the vessels in question were very manifest in both cornea, 

 so that I was able to point them out to many of my colleagues, 

 particularly to R. Virchow and H. Miiller, I have since been 

 unable to perceive any decided indication of pale vessels of the 

 same kind, either in the adult Cat or in the newly born Kitten, 



Fig. 297. Capillaries and lymphatics (?) at the border of the cornea of a Kitten : 

 a a, trunks of the colourless vessels ; b, caecal clavate extremity of one of these 

 vessels; e, pointed prolongation; d, loops; e, blood-capillaries ; x 250 diam. 



