1885.] Fhystology. 1237 
up of minute “cells and pores.” For more than a century after, 
cells were regarded as tiny vesicles filled with an homogeneous 
fluid; then, in 1781, Fontana, discovered the cell-nucleus. In 
1836, just about the time when the great generalization of the 
cell doctrine was receiving its first impulse, Valentin described 
the nucleolus. The work of Carnoy is an interesting account of 
all that the most refined methods of investigation have been able 
to discover in the morphology and chemistry of the cell. Car- 
noy’s Gescription is so minute, and goes so much beyond the 
statements of some of the most trustworthy observers, that' the 
careful reader who has not repeated his demonstrations is apt 
to view it with suspicion. 
But, judged by internal evidence, the work has been performed 
with skill and conscience; the author describes minutely his 
methods and the nature of the material employed, relying chiefly 
upon the examination of fresh tissues. The illustrations are all 
new and uncommonly well executed, but the reader has a right 
to complain at the complete omission of an index to the contents 
of the book. 
In 1859 Stilling discovered a fibrillar structure in ganglionic 
cells, and in 1864 Leydig described a similar appearance in the 
intestinal cells of certain small crustaceans. In 1865 Frommann 
announced that the fibrillar structure was a general character of 
living cells and in 1873 Heitzmann arrived at the same conclusion. 
The existence of fibrils in the cell may be considered established 
as a general property of living tissue, but authors are by no 
means agreed as to the distribution and character of the fibrillar 
structure. Carnoy considers that all cell structure has been grad- 
ually differentiated from original formless, homogeneous proto- 
plasm; the typical cell, however, is a very complex apparatus. 
Taking as an example an epithelium cell from the intestine of the 
wood-louse, Carnoy describes the cell as composed of hyaline 
protoplasm inclosed in a membrane, and including a greater or 
less number of granules. Imbedded in the protoplasm is a nu- 
cleus with a membrane of its own, i 
The cell protoplasm is not homogeneous but is traversed in all 
directions by a dense reticulum of fibrils, which is attached to the 
membrane of the nucleus on one hand and to the cell wall on the 
other. The nucleus exists like a small cell within the substance 
of the larger. But in the nucleus the fibrillar structure is two-fold 
in nature. The most evident of these is a convoluted filarnent of 
very striking presence and complex internal structure. It stains 
= deeply with coloring reagents, dissolves in dilute alkalies and in 
strong acids; it forms a gelatinous mass with sodium chloride 
ten per cent, but dilute acids have no effect upon it; it is not di- 
gested by artificial gastric juice, but with iodine, and with Millon’s 
