Connective Substances. By T. E. Satterthwaite, 
245 
deyer, to be in general flat, having a considerable amount of proto- 
plasmic material about their nuclei (Fig. 10), though in the 
direction of the periphery they gradually taper off into thin expan- 
sions which are nearly homogeneous, and extending from them are 
distinct processes which in part unite with those of other cor- 
puscles and in part end blindly. In structure these corpuscles are 
not materially different from those of tendon tissue and the other 
varieties already mentioned. In them is the same flattened oval 
body, which seen on the side is rod-shaped (h), and is surrounded by 
an irregular envelope that assumes almost any shape. Thus the 
corpuscles are not always flat, though they are usually so. Their 
shape depends upon many different causes, such as the method of 
preparing the tissue, the amount of laceration to which it is sub- 
jected, &c. The best method of examining the cornea consists in 
preparing it by the gold method already described. 
After the tissue has been properly stained, which is known 
when it has taken a mauve or violet tint, the specimen may be 
allowed to stay in the sun ; then thin lamellae are to be torn off 
with the forceps, and mounted in dammar varnish or Canada 
balsam, after the tissue has been made thoroughly transparent by 
soaking in oil of cloves. It will then be seen that there are bodies 
within certain well-defined areas — the corneal spaces as they are 
called by Kecklinghausen and others. These bodies are disposed 
at pretty regular intervals throughout the cornea and are generally 
flat, with rounded contours, though often they have processes 
extending from them in various directions. In the accompanying 
drawing the spaces may be distinctly seen as well as the variously 
shaped corneal corpuscles ; one (c) is crowded into the prolongation 
of a corneal space, while another (b) is connected by its processes 
with a neighbouring corpuscle. One corneal space (a) is entirely 
empty. These differing conditions are in a measure due, probably, 
to the laceration of the tissue in preparing it, some of the bodies 
having been torn out and others forced to the side of the corneal 
space. There seems to be a pretty general agreement that the 
intercellular substance may be separated into independent fibrils, 
but upon this point I have seen no decisive proof. Dr. Thin has 
called attention to certain peculiar corpuscles which he has observed 
in the cornea, and which were different from the corpuscles already 
mentioned and the lymphoid corpuscles also met with there.* 
Mr. Priestley, in a recent number of the ' Journal of Anatomy and 
Physiology' (October, 1875), has stated his experiences in looking 
for these corpuscles, but decides that they were probably epithelium 
from the anterior layer of the cornea. Dr. Thin seems to have sus- 
pected this at one time, but he tells us that he satisfied himself 
that he had not committed this error. 
* 'Lancet/ Feb. 14, 1873. 
