438 Messrs. S. G. Shattock and L. S. Dudgeon. [Mar. 18, 



finely granular polymorphonuclear leucocytes, but it may take that of a fine 

 stippling. A still further likeness is to be found in the occasional presence 

 of similar iodophilic granules in the plasma ; for fine extra-cellular granules 

 may occur also in the Scharlach preparations. 



Although the iodophilic reaction may be seen in normal blood, in pro- 

 nounced degree it occurs only under pathological conditions, and observers 

 are agreed in viewing it as evidence of cell degeneration, brought about in 

 most cases by a toxic cause. 



We exclude this explanation, however, for the reason that the Scharlach 

 granulation is not to be observed in control cover-glass films if treated with 

 absolute alcohol before being transferred to the dye. The glycogenic reaction, 

 on the contrary, is as readily obtained after this treatment as without it.* 



We have, moreover, found that glycogen is uncoloured by Scharlach. If 

 fat-free glycogen (from the rabbit's liver) is dissolved in distilled water and 

 precipitated by alcohol, the wet sediment, when treated with Scharlach for 

 48 hours and examined microscopically, is seen to consist of fine spherical 

 granules which are quite untouched by the dye. The same sediment stains 

 of a mahogany brown when submitted (after drying on an albuminised cover 

 glass) to the action of iodine vapour for 20 minutes, and afterwards mounted 

 in Ehrlich's iodine medium. 



The absence of the Scharlach granulation when the blood films have first 

 been treated with absolute alcohol excludes the possibility of the granules 

 being blood pigment which has been ingested by the leucocytes. 



We have found the Scharlach granulation in some of the finely granular 

 polymorphonuclear leucocytes in cover-glass films made from the splenic pulp 

 in a case of acute peritonitis, the films having been fixed in formol and treated 

 precisely like those of the blood. In this observation, also, the exclusion of 

 blood pigment is brought out by the fact that the deep brown granules are 

 not to be seen in the films stained by Leishman's method. 



Does the Scharlach granulation represent a substance in which fat is not 

 free, but combined ? Is it allied to lecithin or myelin, both of which are 

 known to occur in many kinds of cell ? Lecithin stained from egg-yolk is not 

 coloured with Scharlach.f 



In sections of an enlarged prostate which we have examined, although the 

 presence of fat was demonstrated by Scharlach treatment in some of the 

 epithelial cells, the free granules in the acini (generally held to be lecithin) 

 were quite uncoloured. 



By the same want of colourability, after treatment with formol, myelin 



* J. Barnicot, 'Journal of Pathology, 5 vol. 11, p. 304. 



t T. B. Elliott and I. Tuckett, * Journal of Physiology,' vol. 34, p. 350. 



