LAMINATED AMYLOID-BODIES (BRAIN, PROSTATE). 4H 



described to you, and since I had my attention directed 

 to the extraordinary resemblance which these bodies 

 present to vegetable structures a resemblance such 

 that they have been regarded, now rather as real starch, 

 now rather as analogous to cellulose. The next organ 

 I came across, although there is no close resemblance in 

 external appearance between it and the ependyma, was 

 the spleen and indeed a condition of it, in which its 

 follicles were wholly converted into this translucent, 

 waxy matter (sagoey spleen Sagomilz). Soon after- 

 wards H. Meckel published his well-known observations 

 which demonstrated the occurrence of this substance 

 in several places, but especially in the kidneys, the liver 

 and the bowels, and we afterwards succeeded in finding 

 it in different other parts, in the lymphatic glands, 

 throughout the whole of the digestive tract, in the 

 mucous membranes of the urinary passages, and finally 

 even in the substance of the muscular organs the heart, 

 and the uterus as well as in the interior of cartilages 

 so that at the present moment there are but few parts 

 of the body that we do not know may undergo this pe- 

 culiar change. 



If we investigate the matter more closely, it seems 

 that two allied, but not identical, substances must be 

 distinguished. In the first place we find bodies which 

 in their chemical properties are more analogous to real 

 vegetable starch, and in form too bear an extraordinary 

 resemblance to vegetable starch-granules, inasmuch as 

 they constitute more or less round, or oval structures, 

 formed by a succession of concentric layers. To this 

 class belong, above all, the corpora amylacea of the ner- 

 vous system (Fig. 94). Many of the laminated amyloid 

 bodies are of very large size ; their diameter may be- 

 come so considerable, that they may be very distinctly 

 recognized with the naked eye. To this category be- 



