604 
DK. MARTIN BARRY ON THE CORPUSCLES OF. THE BLOOD. 
is inclosed by a peculiar structureless wall, the cell-membrane of the secondary 
muscle-cell'f'.” 
31. Such then are the latest published views on the mode of origin of muscle. 1 
have now to record facts which in some of the main points seem to confirm these 
views, and to supply further information regarding early periods in the formation of 
muscular fibre. But should they be found sufficient for these purposes, they will 
solve a problem of no common interest, and this in a most unexpected manner. 
32. The objects in Plate XXX. fig. 17* were found lying together in mucus pressed 
from the Fallopian tube of a Rabbit killed ten hours post coitum. These mixed ob- 
jects viewed singly in the microscope, had the same colour as the corpuscles (red 
particles) of the Blood, — viz. a yellowish colour. Accumulations of such objects — 
which frequently present themselves — appear blood-red. 
33. We have seen a gradual transition of blood-discs into cells for the formation 
of the chorion, — as in Plate XXIX. figs. 6, 7- If now the objects in Plate XXX. 
fig. 17- be closely examined and compared with one another, I think it will be difficult 
to resist the conviction that there is an equally gradual transition from unchanged 
blood-discs to cells entering into the formation of certain necklace-like fibres in the 
figure. The question then is, what are these fibres which blood-discs form ? 
34. In describing the mode of origin of muscle, Valentin remarks^:, that globules 
approach one another and coalesce to form threads, which in many places have a 
necklace- like appearance, but subsequently lose the traces of division and become 
cylinders. Could a more appropriate description have been given of the mode of 
origin of the fibres in my figures 14, 15, 16, 17 §? Schwann conjectures || that the 
globules now referred to as having been observed by Valentin, are cells ; that these 
coalesce to form a secondary cell, that is, the cylinder ; and that the nuclei contained 
in the cylinder are the nuclei of the primary cells. He found the nuclei fiat, and not 
in the axis of the cylinder but in its wall. My observations realise these conjectures 
of Schwann, and the figures just referred to attest the accuracy of his observations. 
I would here compare my fig. 15. with l of fig. 18., borrowed for the sake of com- 
parison from Schwann, and exhibiting a later stage ; and if several objects in my 
f Schwann, in R. Wagner’s Lehrbuch der Physiologie, I. pp. 140, 141. He adds: “A process entirely 
analogous to that which forms muscle is in operation, according to Meyen, in the cells of the inner bark of 
trees. Here also there arise simple cells, which apply themselves to one another in a row, and through coales- 
cence at the points of contact of the cell-membranes, and absorption of these coalesced partitions, become con- 
verted into a secondary cell, the wall of which thickens from a secondary deposit. The only question is, 
whether the substance which produces this thickening consists of longitudinal fibres” [fibrillse] , p. 141. 
I See the quotations from this author, pars. 28. 29. 
§ The objects in all these figures were pressed from the Fallopian tube, which it will be recollected becomes 
muscular at the period to which these observations have reference. Figs, 14 and 15. represent a minute por- 
tion only (merely the extremity), of a very considerable mass of fibres. 
U See the quotations from this author, par. 30. 
