DR. MARTIN BARRY ON FIBRE. 117 



120. A late observer seems to have regarded the interlacing spirals, now mentioned, 

 as "the edges or focal sections of plates or discs, arranged vertically to the course of 

 the fasciculi, and each of which is made up of a single segment of every nbrilla-f-." 

 He seems to have mistaken the normal appearances of interlacing spirals, for dis- 

 turbed states of his supposed " discs." The minute anatomy of the tissues is to be 

 learnt in no other way than by tracing them from their earliest origin. 



121. I have in no instance delineated muscle that had undergone maceration, a 

 process open to objection, because putrefactive changes may cause the more delicate 

 portions of a structure to disappear. Can the alleged " beaded" structure of the 

 fibril (which I have never been able to see in recent muscle) be demonstrated with- 

 out maceration ? 



122. This may not be an improper place to draw the attention of future observers, 

 generally, to the effect produced by corrosive chemical reagents, as well as by mace- 

 ration : whether the maceration be continued so as to produce putrefaction or not. 

 It is easy to imagine that, owing to the operation of either of these, a delicate struc- 

 ture may be entirely destroyed, and therefore unrecognized ; or its continuity sepa- 

 rated into isolated parts. And I cannot but think that it must be from some such 

 cause as this (the disintegrating effect of prolonged maceration), that BOWMAN 

 exhibits the fibril of muscle as consisting of beads}:, while my own observations 

 represent it as consisting of a double spiral : and that there is so great a difference 

 between his explanation and my own, of transverse " cleavage." It is true that I 

 also have had recourse to the use of chemical reagents. But there is a wide differ- 

 ence between the presence and the absence of a visible object immediately after the 

 application of a chemical reagent, when the peculiar form of that object entitles it to 

 be considered, not as a chemical compound, but as an organized structure (par. 95). 



" 



123. Observers appear not to have determined the mode in which the "fibres 

 contained in hairs have their origin . Young hair (wool) of the foetal sheep pre- 

 sented to me the appearance, an outline of part of which is sketched in fig. 155. The 

 hair-bulb contained nuclei, which seemed to be unwinding, watch-spring-like, into 

 " fibres," that is, flat, grooved, and compound filaments (a), which I have already 

 mentioned having seen in hair (par. 71). These filaments, immediately after being 

 given off from the nuclei, appeared to interlace. In the shaft they presented very 

 much the same appearance as those in the olfactory nerve (fig. 108). The interla- 

 cing of the filaments produces very remarkable appearances in the shaft of many 

 hairs, as those of the Mouse, Mole, and Rabbit. 



t BOWMAN, /. c., p. 469. 



t As in " three fragments of a macerated heart." BOWMAN, /. c., Plate XVI. fig. 17. 

 See SIMON, in MULLEE'S Archiv, 1841, Heft IV. p. 369 : by whom the researches of HENLB, and those 

 of BIDDER are referred to. 



