484 Drs. Herring and Simpson. Relation of the [May 31, 



than the liver cells, and containing one or more nuclei. They are regularly 

 distributed throughout the lobules, and occur at intervals along the vessels, 

 never in groups. Their position is constant in being always in contact with 

 the capillary wall ; but the form of contact varies. Some cells enclose" the 

 capillary with their processes, others have one end only touching the vessel 

 while the main body lies on the nearest liver cell ; their branches often pass 

 in between the liver cells, and may even reach the bile capillaries. 



Kupffer found " Sternzellen " in the liver of the rat, mouse, rabbit, pig, 

 dog, and man, and believed them to be connective-tissue cells lying outside 

 the blood capillaries. He identified them with the cells described by Wagner 

 and Kolliker, and with some but not all of the cinnabar-holding cells of 

 Ponfick, and thought they might prove to be related to the origin of 

 lymphatics. Kupffer also described an intralobular scaffolding of fine non- 

 nucleated, sharply-cut fibres, which, running from the sheath of the central 

 vein, break up into fibres of extraordinary fineness and support the portal 

 vein capillaries throughout the lobule. To this intralobular network of 

 fibres he applied the name " Gitterfasern." Many subsequent observers have 

 corroborated Kupffer's views, but there has been some difference of opinion 

 regarding the character of the cells he described. Ehrlich (18) looked on 

 them as belonging to his group of plasma-cells. Heidenhain (22), on the 

 other hand, regarded them as special connective-tissue cells related, in all 

 probability, to the perivascular lymphatic spaces described by MacGillavry 

 Eibbert (52) laid stress on the property they have of taking up from 

 the blood not only solid particles introduced into it, but also of depositing 

 in their protoplasm granules from materials which enter them in a soluble 

 form. 



Eothe (53) found Kupffer's cells in the cat, guinea-pig, sheep, and sparrow ; 

 Asch (2) found that they rapidly take up particles of cinnabar and carmine 

 when these are injected into the blood. In the liver of the frog he states that 

 the pigment cells of the liver have the same function. Lowit (41) concluded 

 that Kupffer's cells take up red blood corpuscles, and transfer the haemo- 

 globin to the liver cells. 



Biondi (6) and Lindemann (40) state that Kupffer's cells take up iron- 

 containing pigment in pernicious ansemia and after the intravenous injection 

 of substances like toluylendiamine. Arnstein (1), in 1874, described pigment- 

 holding cells in connective tissue between capillaries and liver cells in cases 

 of melanosis. The phagocytic property of Kupffer's cells has been amply 

 proved by further researches of Kupffer himself, by Eutimeyer (54), 

 Siebel (57), and quite recently by Heinz (23). Kupffer at first, and nearly 

 all subsequent observers, regarded the " Sternzellen " as extravascular cells 



