On the Development of the Suprarenal Bodies in 

 Mammalia. By K. Mitsukuri, Pli.B.j University 

 of Tokio, Japan. 



(With Plate VI.) 



It has for a long time been known that the suprarenal 

 bodies are in close connection with the sympathetic system. 

 As far back as 1839 Bergmann is said to have noted the 

 fact. Remak, writing in 1847, clearly stated the relation 

 on embryological grounds, and even went so far as to call 

 the suprarenal bodies " Nervendriisen." Leydig^ is explicit 

 in his statements in regard to the point. According to him, 

 the suprarenal bodies in Selachians, Ganoids, and Reptiles, 

 consist of two distinct parts. The one is enclosed, together 

 with the usual ganglion cells, in successive sympathetic 

 ganglia, and is made up of masses of cells different from the 

 ganglion cells only in being dirty yellow in colour ; the other 

 part is derived from the former by the deposition of fat globules 

 in the cells, and is situated on blood-vessels as yellowish 

 masses. He further maintained that the ganglionic part 

 corresponds to the medullary, and the yellowish masses to 

 the cortical part of the Mammalian (and Avian ?) suprarenal 

 bodies, which, in these classes, are coalesced into one mass 

 on each side. According to this view the cortical part of the 

 suprarenal bodies of the higher types must, therefore, be de- 

 rived from the medullary — a conclusion which will be shown 

 to be erroneous. It should be mentioned that in an earlier 

 work^ Leydig did not believe in the derivation of the one part 

 from the other — -in fact, considered the yellowish masses 

 simply as collections of fat cells. 



Balfour, in his ' Monograph on the Development of Elas- 

 mobranch Fishes,' mentions " two structures that have gone 

 under the name of the suprarenal bodies." The one called 

 by him the interrenal body is "an impaired rod-like body, 



^ 'Anatomisch-Histologisch Untersuchungen liber Fische und Rep- 

 tilien," Berlin ; 1853, and ' Lebrbucli der Histologic des Menscben und 

 der Thiere.' 



2 • Beitrage zur Mikros. Anat. &c., der Bocben und Haie,' Leipzig, 

 1852. 



