1896.] Mr Bles, Nephrostomial Tubules. 73 



(2) On the communication between peritoneal cavity and renal 

 veins through the nephrostomial tubules in the frog (R. temporaria). 

 By Edward J. Bles, B. Sc. 



The discovery of nephrostomes in the kidneys of adult Am- 

 phibia was announced by Spengel in his fine paper: Das Uro- 

 genitalsystem der Amphibien, published in 1876 1 . In this he 

 showed clearly that the nephrostomial tubules in Urodeles and in 

 Ccecilia have a lumen persistent throughout life and always con- 

 tinuous with the perivisceral space at one end and with the 

 lumen of the neck of the Malpighian body at the other end. 

 Semper 2 and Balfour 3 had both described in 1874 a similar state of 

 things in the Wolffian bodies of Elasmobranch embryos, and 

 Semper 4 gave a list of Elasmobranchs in which the nephrostomes 

 remain open in the adult. Thus it was shown that in this respect 

 there is a close resemblance between adults of many species of 

 Elasmobranchs, Urodeles and Ccecilia. 



When Spengel, however, examined the adult kidney of Anura, 

 although the nephrostomes were clearly visible, he could not trace 

 a single tubule from them into the neck of a Malpighian body. 

 F. Meyer of Leipzig, who discovered the " stomata," as he called 

 them, independently of Spengel, was equally unable to find the 

 inner opening into a tubule of the kidney 5 . The subject was next 

 investigated by M. Nussbaum who published in 1880 a short 

 paper 6 , without illustrations, containing the statement that the 

 nephrostomial tubules in adults of the genera Rana, Bufo and 

 Bombinator communicate at their inner ends with veins which he 

 identified with renal portal veins. This result was accepted by 

 Wiedersheim both in his Lehrbuch 1 and his Grundriss 8 der ver- 

 gleichenden Anatomie der Wirbelthiere and in his portion of Ecker's 

 Anatomie des Frosches 9 . Still the observations seem to have been 

 met with incredulity and Nussbaum with his pupil Wichmann 



1 Arb. a. d. zool. zoot. List. d. Univ. Wurzburg. Bd. in. (1876), p. 1. A short 

 notice had already appeared early in 1875 in Centralbl. f. d. med. Wissensch. 

 No. 23. 



2 "Ueber die Stammverwandtschaft der Wirbelthiere und Anneliden." Centrbl. 

 f. d. med. Wiss. 1874. No. 35. 



3 Q. J. M. S. 1874. Vol. xiv. N. S. p. 357. 



4 " Segmentalorgane bei ausgewachsenen Haien." Centrbl. f. d. med. Wiss. 

 1874. No. 52. 



5 Fritz Meyer. "Beitrag zur Anatomie des Urogenitalsystems der Selachier 

 und Amphibien." Sitzber. d. Naturf. Ges. zu Leipzig. 1875. p. 38. 



6 "Ueber die Endigung der Wimpertrichter in der Niere der Anuren." Zool. 

 Anz. in. Jahrg. p. 514. 



7 2te Auflage. 1886. p. 758. 



8 2te Auflage. 1888. p. 355. English ed. 1886. p. 307. 



9 1882. p. 41. 



