1901] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 61 
The classification of the parasite is of much uncertain- 
ty. Some observers place it in the animal kingdom and 
some in the vegetable kingdom, but none place it in the 
protista, so far as I know. Ranking it in the protista is 
provisional of course. It is a biological organism, hav- 
ing what is known as life and being moveable and going 
about its way reproducing and dying. 
These organisms are omnipresent and omnipotent, but 
existing and reproducing and passing away as are all 
things and thus we see the beginning and the ending. 
PERIFERAL NEURITIS. 
ROBERT A, FLEMMING, M. D. 
Proceedings of the Scottish Micro. Society, Vol. III. 
These words used to denote a certain change of condi- 
tion of the nerves, have recently been prominent in the 
papers in connection with the subject “arsenic in beer.” 
In a paper on ascending degeneration and the changes 
which occur in the central end of a divided nerve as the 
result of section or ligature, and I described the changes 
consequent thereon in the nerve-cells of the anterior cor- 
nua of the cord, and the cells in the ganglia in the pos- 
terior nerve-roots. Similar changes occur in these nerve- 
cells in peripheral neuritis, the cells show marked chro- 
miatolysis, peripheral displacement of the nucleus, and 
diminution in size of both cell and nucleus. Not infrequent- 
ly the chromatic granules are gathered in a dense mass 
around the nucleus, while more rarely they become per- 
ipherally arranged. 
But it is especially the changes in the nerves them- 
selves which I wish to demonstrate. These changes con- 
sist in:—(1) Degeneration of nerve fibres, axis cylinders, 
and myelin sheaths. (2) Changes in the blood-vessels, 
especially the capillaries and arterioles of the nerve. (3) 
Exudations into the funiculi of the affected nerve. 
