GENERAL CHARACTERS OF CONNECTIVE TISSUE CELLS. 55 



and differentiated from the other cells contained in the tissue, 

 in the tail of the living tadpole. In this object Golubew has 

 frequently exhibited to me the migration of these structures 

 from the vessels. 



In the case of the blood of the frog, it may be shown that the 

 amoeboid cells it contains are subservient to the regeneration of 

 the red corpuscles, into which they become transformed by a 

 process all the stages of which may be completely followed .* 

 We must therefore ask whether any further metamorphosis 

 occurs in the amoeboid cells of the connective tissue ; and on 

 the answer we obtain depends the still more important ques- 

 tion, whether all or much of the development and growth 

 of connective tissue is to be referred to a proliferation of the 

 cells forming the original mass of the tissue, or whether, as has 

 already been shown to occur in neoplastic pathological for- 

 mations, those amoeboid cells participate which originate in 

 localized germ masses in the organism, and have then migrated 

 into the tissue. 



We now turn to those cells of the connective tissue which 

 are capable of being distinguished from the amoeboid cells, and 

 meet, in the first place, a peculiar material obtained from the 

 living tissues, which has been made known by the researches 

 of Kiihne.f I allude to that kind of connective tissue which 

 appears in the form of perfectly transparent membranes be- 

 tween the muscles of the leg and thigh in the frog. According 

 to Kiihne, several varieties of cells can be here distinguished, 

 differing from the migrating cells. They all appear to be 

 formed of granular material, but some are characterised by 

 being surrounded with a very finely granular cloud, by which 

 they are distinguished from the transparent matrix; that is, 

 traversed only by a few fibres. Others, again, appear to be 

 formed of a material containing larger strongly refractile gra- 

 nules. The coarsely granular cells possess, for the most part, 

 an elongated form ; the nucleus, which occupies the broadest 



* Golubew, SitzunyslericMe der Wiener Akademie. Sitzung vom, 16th 

 April, 1868. 



f Untersuchungen uber das Protoplasma und die Contractilitdt, p. 109. 

 Leipzig, 1864. 



