THE SUPRARENAL SYSTEM 303 



cells which he found in the vessels of the testicles with Eberth's 

 perithelial cells from the glandula carotica, and with other peri- 

 vascular formations also composed of large cells from the 

 coccygeal bodies. Waldeyer classed these three structures 

 together under the name of " perithelial organs." 



The supposed glandular character of the carotid organ 

 appeared at first to be borne out by the history of its development. 

 Stieda (1881) came to the conclusion that the glandula carotica was 

 a glandular organ developed from the epithelium of one of the 

 branchial clefts. Jakoby (1895) then proved that the epithelial 

 derivative of the third branchial cleft, which was supposed by many 

 authors to be the primordial beginning of the carotid organ, is, in 

 reality, the beginning not of that organ but of the external para- 

 thyroids (glandula parathyroidea III). This was confirmed 

 by later authors (Prenant, Simon, Groschuf, Verdun, Fusari). At 

 the present day, the branchial origin of the carotid organ is main- 

 tained by Maurer, but only in this sense, that he believes that it 

 splits off from one of the parathyroids which take their rise in the 

 second branchial cleft. These embryological discoveries have, to 

 a large extent, undermined the theory of the carotid organ as an 

 epithelial gland. 



The examination of certain tumours of the glandula carotis 

 led Marchand (1891) to the conclusion that this organ repre- 

 sents neither the development of a vascular network, nor is it a 

 gland or a ganglion ; he regards it as a rudimentary organ for 

 which he proposes the name of nodulus caroticus. 



R. Paltauf (1891) studied the development of the carotid 

 organ and its tumours, and he classed this structure with the 

 glandular organs, in the sense in which we are accustomed to 

 describe the lymph-glands and the thymus as " glands." This 

 definition involves neither a definite physiological function, nor a 

 histological or histogenetic uniformity. 



Schaper (1892) particularly emphasizes the fact that the 

 typical cell agglomerations in the carotid organ are neither vessel- 

 wall cells nor gland cells ; that, moreover, the organ is in no sense 

 rudimentary, but, like the coccygeal gland and other large or 

 small agglomerations of similar cells (perithelial cells and plasma 

 cells), it may possess a definite physiological function. 



Stilling (1892) was the first to describe cells in what, like the 

 other authors, he terms the ganglion intercaroticum, which, like 

 the medullary cells of the suprarenals, stain brown with potassium 

 bichromate. He compared these cells with those which he found 

 in the smaller bodies attached to the abdominal sympathetic. 

 Stilling says : " The intercarotid ganglion is neither a simple 

 vascular network, nor a rudimentary organ : it is a vascular 

 gland, or blood-gland, with a structure analogous to that of the 

 suprarenal capsules." 



The absence of any certain knowledge concerning the 



