276 EXTRACTS AND ABSTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 



matter. I also frequently found the contents of these bodies to be so 

 composed, but besides remarked in numerous instances, one or more 

 hairs in them, which were either scattered about irregularly in the ex- 

 pressed matter, and curved in various directions, or lay together in a 

 parallel direction. This was especially and very frequently observable 

 in large black pointed Comedones on the nose. The number of hairs 

 thus formed, in some cases, was extraordinarily great, occasionally 

 amounting to above forty. The hairs contained in the large nasal 

 Comedones had moreover this peculiarity, that they did not terminate in 

 a sharp point, but appeared to be cut off, so as to have a rounded extre- 

 mity. The examination, also, of the integument in the dead subject, 

 clearly proved the Comedones to be morbidly altered hair-follicles. I 

 took some perpendicular sections of the integument of the nose, fur- 

 nished with many of these bodies, and examined them under the micro- 

 scope, when they clearly appeared to be sacculi, closed below and open- 

 ing at the surface of the integument. They all had the form of the hair- 

 follicle, with the exception that they were a little wider than the nor- 

 mal ones, as I proved by comparison with unaltered hair-follicles taken 

 from another body. In the interior of the dilated follicles there was a 

 large accumulation of sebaceous matter, and either one or a great num- 

 ber of hairs. When many hairs were present, no part of the sheath, 

 which naturally surrounds the lower part of the hair within the outer 

 sac, was distinguishable ; but the collected hairs appeared to lie loose in 

 the outer sac. 



The sebaceous matter could be expressed through the opening of the 

 hair-follicle. Thence it would appear, that the maggot-like bodies are 

 in fact hair-follicles, and that they are occasionally converted into the 

 pustules of acne ; and it is very probable, that when the pustules do 

 not thus originate, some disease of the hair-follicles is still their real 

 cause. 



Further researches, however, are necessary to render this opinion 

 certain. 



But besides the above-mentioned parts, I found in matter from the 

 Comedones of living subjects, other bodies, which I did not at first know 

 how to explain. I frequently remarked in them a slender corpuscle 

 about -^th of a line in length, which was rounded at one end, and at 

 the other, which was rather thicker, appeared to be furnished with 

 short teeth. I at first conceived that the glands of the hair- follicles of 

 the nose were differently constituted to those in other parts of the body, 

 and that by the pressure I had torn away one of these glands with a 

 portion of the follicle attached to it. 



Opposed to this view, however, was the circumstance, on the one 

 hand, that the more slender, rounded extremity of this body appeared 

 completely closed ; and, on the other, that the thicker, toothed end was 

 always in the same form, which could not well have been the case with 

 detached or torn away portions of a gland. I consequently pursued my 

 examination of these bodies, and was at last convinced that they were 

 animals ; and, by using higher magnifying powers, I was able to make 

 out clearly a head, legs, thorax, and abdomen. 



This supposition was confirmed, when, on an occasion, in which I 



