Amoeboid cells in intestinal absorption- " 



such indentation (see the woodcut on page 11), instead of presentiüg 

 the uniformly smooth columnar or conical shape which we are familiär 

 with in the classical illustrations of Kölliker and other histologists. 

 Where the leucocytes are absent the cells m,ay he smooth on their 

 lateral surfaces, but the pointed or rounded fixed extremity which is 

 also Seen in those iUustrations does not really exist. When seen it 

 is the result of the method of preparation, as when the cells are 

 examined fresh in seriim; most of them being broken near their at- 

 tached end, or at all events having contracted on Separation so that 

 this end appears rounded. As seen in sections or in isolated specimens 

 which have been appropriately hardened before Separation of the in- 

 dividual elements, the attached end of the colunmar epithelium ceU 

 is always truncated and flattened where it rests against the super- 

 ficial layer of the corium (basement membrane). I have never found 

 it prolonged into the corium in the form of an arborescent process 

 as has been so often described and figured') but much less often, in- 

 deed I believe never, actually seen, the appearances described being 

 due to other causes. I have examined hundreds of preparations with 

 this especial object in view, and have never once seen a Prolongation 

 of an epithelium cell into the corium, far less its connection with a 

 branched cell of the retiform tissue.^) I am disposed therefore to deny 

 emphatically the existence of such a connection, which existence in 

 all probability has been maintained on the strength of the fact that 

 a Union of the columnar epithelium ceUs, branched cells of the 

 mucosa and the lacteal into a protoplasmic network, allows of the 

 production of a diagrammatic Illustration of the path of absorption 

 which is much prized by authors of text-books, but which nevertheless 

 is as purely imaginary as the formerly supposed opening of the ab- 

 sorbent vessels by patent oriflces.^) 



^) As for instance by Heidenhain, in Molescbott's Untersuchungen IV, 1858; 

 Funke in bis Atlas; and v. Thanhoffer in Pflüger' s Archiv, VIII, 1874. 



*) Compare Erdmann, Dissert. Dorpat 1867; and Watney, Phil. Trans. 1876, 

 p. 560. 



3) The error of describing the fixed ends of the columnar cells as branched 

 has probably arisen from a jagged appearance which has been seen in them and 

 which is due, as above pointed out, to the presence of amoeboid ceUs between them. 



