16 THE GENERAL CHARACTERS OF CELLS, BY S. STRICKER. 



to the agency of currents, but not through their own active 

 movements. 



The capability of moving from one place to another, possessed 

 by the Amoeba, has long been known. The migratory power 

 of the Foraminifera, by means of the processes of their struc- 

 tureless substance protruded through the openings of their 

 shell, has also been frequently observed. But Recklinghausen* 

 was the first to notice that the cells in complex animal bodies 

 can also perform movements of locomotion, and by his obser- 

 vation introduced a fact to our knowledge having a very wide 

 and important bearing. 



E. Hackel, whilst injecting Thetis fimbria with indigo, dis- 

 covered that fine particles of colouring matter could penetrate 

 into the interior of the blood corpuscles. The artificial intro- 

 duction of colouring matters into cells is now termed giving 

 them a supply of food. If, into the medium in which the cells 

 are suspended (for example, blood plasma), a finely granular 

 colouring matter be introduced, some of the particles of the 

 latter are soon found to cleave to the surface of the cells, and 

 to pass from thence into their interior. 



By the aid of this mode of supplying food, Recklinghausen 

 has furnished the important proof that pus corpuscles are not 

 always generated where they are found. He has shown that 

 pus corpuscles can migrate into the meshes even of a dead 

 cornea, and has by this observation opened up a new path for 

 every department of pathological inquiry. These also are 

 matters of fact that exert no little influence on physiology 

 generally. If have myself shown that in the construction of 

 the body of the embryo, the movement of masses of ce?ls to 

 form the rudiments of organs, depends on the migration of the 

 embryonal cells within the ovum. Cohnheim J has also very 

 recently, by demonstrating that the colourless corpuscles can 

 leave the vessels, and migrate, and that there may be a trans- 

 plantation of living cells from one organ into another, and from 

 one region of the body to another, furnished us with in- 



* Virchow's Archiv, Band xxviii. 

 t Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 1864. 

 | Virchow's Archiv, Band xi. 



