NUTRITIVE AND FORMATIVE IRRITATION. 345 



really set in, but Heir v. Graefe assures me that, from 

 what he has seen, such conditions may, when the disease 

 runs a favourable course, terminate in resolution. And 

 there is really nothing at all in the matter at variance 

 with this possibility ; for, since the cells still exist and 

 the only thing required is that their changed contents 

 be get rid of, a complete restitution may no doubt take 

 place. 



Now just this doctrine of a simply nutritive restitutional 

 power is of very great importance practically. In such a 

 case as this, where nothing has taken place excepting 

 that the cells, without ceasing to display their activity, 

 have accumulated in their cavities a larger quantity of 

 material than usual, everything is prepared for the pro- 

 cess which we call reabsorption ; the cells can transform 

 a certain quantity of the material and convert it into 

 soluble substances, and the material in this form may dis- 

 appear in the very same way in which it came. The 

 structure in the main remains the same all the while 

 nothing foreign has thrust itself in between the parts 

 the tissue presents throughout its original constituents. 



From the phenomena of this nutritive irritation direct 

 transitions to incipient formative changes are often seen. 

 If namely, we follow up the higher degrees of irritation 

 which take place in a part, we find that the cellular ele- 

 ments, shortly after they have experienced the nutritive 

 enlargement, exhibit further changes which begin in the 

 interior of the nuclei, generally in such a manner that the 

 nucleoli become unusually large, in many cases some- 

 what oblong, and sometimes staff-shaped. Then as the 

 next stage we usually see that the nucleoli become con- 

 stricted in the middle, and assume the form of a finger- 

 biscuit (Bisquit), and a little later two nucleoli are found. 

 This division of the nucleoli is an indication of the impend- 

 ing division of the nucleus itself, and the next stage is, 



