14 E. A. Schäfer, 



fat in the chjnme is relatively large." For although under these cir- 

 cumstances it may happen that almost every surface epithelium cell 

 in the small intestine is fllled witli fat particles, under other con- 

 ditions, namely, when tlie absorptive activity is feeble'), or when tlie 

 amount of fat in the chyme is relatively small, there may be little 

 or no fat in tlie columnar epithelium cells, although the amoeboid cells 

 between them may be gorged with fat globules. This fact alone would 

 at once seem to point to the latter cells as the more active agents 

 in the process of fat absorption, as indeed I shall presently endeavour 

 to show is the actual case, while the repletion of the columnar cells with 

 fat under other circumstances, might be taken to indicate for them a 

 special function as temporary storehouses of that alimentary principle 

 when more is absorbed than can at once be carried to the lacteals 

 by the amoeboid cells. For example I have noticed that in frogs that 

 I have fed with lard in the spring time fatty globules are still ab- 

 undant in the columnar epithelium-cells on the eighth day after the 

 feeding, and probably they might have been found for some time 

 longer, whereas in frogs simüarly fed in November the greater part of 

 the fat was discharged per anum by the third day, very little being 

 absorbed, and what was being taken up during that time was only 

 to be found in the amoeboid cells, none at aU being present in the 

 epithelium ceUs themselves (plate X, fig. 6). 



The tissue of the mucous membrane. 



This tissue, which is usually described as lymphoid or adenoid 

 tissue, no doubt merits that description so far as the number of 

 amoeboid cells it contains is concerned. Apart from these however 

 it does not, except where a lymphoid nodule^) (adenoid foUicle) is 

 present, exactly agree in structure with the adenoid tissue of the 



') As in frogs during the early winter months. 



®) I have long employed the term "nodule" to express the structure to which 

 the name lymphoid "foUicle" is usually applied, the word follicle having an entirely 

 diiferent meaniag and having been originaUy applied to something of quite different 

 form and structure. The change has also been adopted for similar reasons by Plem- 

 ming (Studien ü. Eegener. d. Gewebe, Arch. f. mikr. Anat. 24) and by Toldt in 

 his Gewebelehre. 



