190G.] Liver Cells to the Blood-vessels and Lymphatics. 467 



Department of the University, to a preparation of human liver from a case 

 of so-called chloroform poisoning. There is extreme fatty degeneration (?) 

 of the liver cells, and fat emboli in the blood-vessels throughout the body. 

 In the liver, many of the vessels are filled with fat in continuous lines, and 

 here and there are distinct connections between the fat in the cells and the 

 fat in the vessels. The appearance is, indeed, very similar to the injection 

 appearances recorded. The preparation was stained with osmic acid (fig. 10). 



In examining sections of the dog's liver (uninjected) stained with eosine 

 and methylene blue we have frequently seen crystals in the nuclei of the 

 liver cells. The crystals are prismatic in shape and vary in length. Some are 

 short and cause no distension of the nuclear membrane, while others are as much 

 as three times the diameter of an average liver cell nucleus, and the nuclear 

 membrane has the appearance of being stretched by the crystal (figs. 1 and 2). 

 We have never seen these crystals in any other situation than inside the nuclei 

 of liver cells, and they seem to occur with equal frequency in the lightly 

 staining and in the darkly staining nuclei. We have seen them in the dog's 

 liver in specimens from five different animals. Most of the preparations 

 were fixed in 10 per cent, formol, but one specimen was fixed several years 

 ago in corrosive sublimate for class purposes ; sections of it show numerous 

 crystals. Not more than one crystal is found in a nucleus. There is little 

 nuclear network in the liver cells of the dog, but a nucleolus is present and 

 is in the crystal-holding nuclei always situated close to the nuclear membrane 

 on one side of and immediately opposite the middle of the crystal. The 

 crystals stain with eosine rather more deeply than the nucleoli and red blood 

 corpuscles. They are of prismatic form, with sharp edges, and closely 

 resemble crystals of haemoglobin. In some nuclei, irregular or rounded 

 masses similarly staining appear. In the cytoplasm of some cells red blood 

 corpuscles are present, some of which are unaltered and others more or less 

 disintegrated. The crystals are probably composed of haemoglobin or, at any 

 rate, of some derivative of the blood pigment. That they are formed during 

 life is obvious from the enlarged size of the nuclei which contain them and 

 the adaptation of the shape of the nuclei to the size and shape of the 

 contained crystal. 



Similar crystals were described by Browicz in 1899. Browicz found them 

 in the dog's liver after the intravenous injection of a solution of Merck's 

 haemoglobin. He also described the breaking down of red blood corpuscles 

 in the liver cells and storage of haemoglobin in the nuclei. The presence of 

 haemoglobin in the liver cell nuclei was one of the chief arguments advanced 

 by Browicz in favour of a very intimate relationship between the circulating 

 blood and the interior of the liver cells. 



