1908-9.] Changes in Liver and Kidney after Chloroform. 421 
chloroform, but that they do not appear in the control tissue for some time. 
After five hours the change in the control tissue is quite as great as in the 
chloroform tissue, and from that time onwards the greatest changes are 
present in the control tissue. This is due to the action of micro-organisms. 
In the kidney the first change which was observed was that the cells of 
the convoluted tubules seem to lose their definiteness of outline and the 
protoplasm takes on an appearance like cloudy swelling. The cells appear 
to be markedly granular, and their free margins rapidly take on a fringed 
appearance. This is followed by a gradual loss of power of taking on basic 
stains on the part of the nucleus. 
The degenerative changes observed in the tubules, beginning in a cloudy 
swelling, become more marked as time progresses, until eventually it was 
difficult to make out the details of structure of the organ. The tubules 
become filled with granular debris, and little is left beyond the basement 
membrane mapping out the position which the tubules have occupied. 
The glomerular tuft is unaffected in the earlier stages ; and, in fact, it is 
not until after the tissue has been immersed in chloroform-saline solution 
for three hours that the first marked change appears. This change consists 
of a slight shrinking of the glomerular tuft away from the capsule of 
Bowman. In the earlier stages this shrinkage is slight, and leaves a 
gradually increasing space between the tuft and the capsule, which after 
longer immersion is found to be occupied by an exudate staining deeply 
with hsemalum. The same shrinking and exudation appears in the 
glomeruli of the specimens immersed in saline solution, but some hours 
later. This confirms in vitro the observations of Marthen (5) and Stiles 
and M‘Donald (3). 
Liver . — In the case of the liver the influence of the chloroform is well 
shown, for at an early stage the normally well-defined nucleated liver cells 
lose their clearness of outline. The finely granular protoplasm becomes 
coarsely granular, and later becomes broken up and vacuolated. The nuclei 
soon lose their power of taking on basic stains, and in course of time the 
cells become so far disintegrated that but little sign of their normal struc- 
ture persists. After many hours the sections show merely granular debris. 
The same changes take place in the tissue immersed in saline ; but, as in the 
case of the kidney, this appears after a much longer immersion. 
Comparing the whole series of specimens which were examined in these 
experiments it may be broadly stated that in vitro the tissues immersed in 
chloroform-saline solution show necrobiotic changes at a very much earlier 
stage than do similar tissues immersed in a similar amount of a pure saline 
solution of the same concentration. 
