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GEORGE ARNOLD. 
nucleus contains only an indistinct mass of faintly stained 
granular debris, and is so shrivelled up that it can be recog- 
nised only with difficulty. 
The cause of the thickening and subsequent fusion of the 
fibrils was not ascertained. It is noticeable, however, that 
very often the cells adjacent to those in which degeneration 
was far advanced contained very few, if any, fibrils (fig. 3, 
cells on the right). The deprivation of fibrillar material 
affects these cells just as adversely as the increase of the 
same affects the other cells. For the result is that these cells 
become detached from the surrounding cells ; the nucleus 
and cytoplasm diminish in size, followed by the disruption of 
the nuclear membrane, and diffusion of the nuclear contents 
into the cytoplasm. Such cells, or rather cell remains, are 
generally to be found, together with leucocytes, in large 
spaces immediately in the neighbourhood of cells of the other 
sort, in which the fibrils are hypertrophied (fig. 2, dn). 
In the latter class of cells the degenerative change in the 
fibrillar material is also accompanied by a distinct increase in 
the amount of cytoplasm (cf. a and d, fig. 1, and fig. 3). It 
is probable that this is due to the withdrawal of cytoplasmic 
material from the same cells in their vicinity, out of which 
the fibrils have been withdrawn. 
The next stage in the degeneration brings about the 
formation of the “ epithelial pearls” or “ cell nests,” so 
distinctive of epitheliomata (fig. 5). 
These bodies are formed by the conjunction of several 
cells, which take up a concentric position around an ill- 
defined centre. It would seem that the cytoplasm of such 
cells fuse together, since it is very difficult to trace the 
complete outline of the cytoplasm of any of the cells com- 
posing such nests (fig. 5). 
Such a fusion is all the more probable when we trace the 
origin of certain peculiar bodies, which are fairly plentiful in 
this and similar malignant growths (fig. 6). These bodies 
sometimes form part of a cell-nest, but more frequently occur 
in the midst of the unaltered malignant cells. They consist 
