512 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE [chap. 



&c., are to be met with within the epithelial cells in sections 

 through normal glands, as also in sections of the skin and 

 of oral mucous membrane, in normal and (better still) in 

 pathological states. The epithelium of cancer is not 

 required for demonstration of these bodies, though in 

 cancer — owing no doubt to extensive multiplication of the 

 epithehal cells — they are met with sometimes, but by no 

 means always, as copiously as these authors would imply. 

 Why, therefore, they should consider these bodies to be 

 coccidia, is not easy to understand. 



Another and perhaps more striking illustration of the 

 same tendency is afforded by Soudakewitsch in Centralblatt f. 

 Bakt. iind Parasit. vol. xiii. page 415, Plate i. He 

 describes there, as parasites, intracellular nucleus-like 

 bodies, which most histologists, with experience of normal 

 and pathological epithehum, would have no difficulty in 

 identifying as chromatic and other derivatives of epithelial 

 nuclei. 



To quote one more instance : In vol. i., p. 198, of the 

 Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, Drs. Ruffer and' 

 Walker describe and figure epithelial cells, in which the 

 main part of the cell substance is occupied by a vacuole, 

 while within this vacuole lie three round clear cells, each 

 with several nuclei. Most histologists recognise these at 

 once as vacuolated epithelial cells containing common 

 leucocytes, such indeed as are commonly found in epithelium 

 under pathological conditions, and normally in certain 

 localities, e.g., fauces, tonsils, and tongue. Such vacuolated 

 epithelial cells containing leucocytes have been familiar to 

 histologists for many years ; they were the very cells about 

 which, seventeen or eighteen years ago, a considerable 

 amount of discussion arose. The question then under 

 debate was ; whether they are endogenously developed 



