DR. MARTIN BARRY ON FIBRE. 
117 
120. A late observer seems to have regarded the interlacing spirals, now mentioned, 
as “ the edges or focal sections of plates or discs, arranged vertically to the course of 
the fasciculi, and each of which is made up of a single segment of every fibrilla^.” 
He seems to have mistaken the normal appearances of interlacing spirals, for dis- 
turbed states of his supposed “ discs.” The minute anatomy of the tissues is to be 
learnt in no other way than by tracing them from their earliest origin. 
121. I have in no instance delineated muscle that had undergone maceration, a 
process open to objection, because putrefactive changes may cause the more delicate 
portions of a structure to disappear. Can the alleged “ beaded” structure of the 
fibril (which I have never been able to see in recent muscle) be demonstrated with- 
out maceration ? 
122. This may not be an improper place to draw the attention of future observers, 
generally, to the effect produced by corrosive chemical reagents, as well as by mace- 
ration : whether the maceration be continued so as to produce putrefaction or not. 
It is easy to imagine that, owing to the operation of either of these, a delicate struc- 
ture may be entirely destroyed, and therefore unrecognized; or its continuity sepa- 
rated into isolated parts. And I cannot but think that it must be from some such 
cause as this (the disintegrating effect of prolonged maceration), that Bowman 
exhibits the fibril of muscle as consisting of beads while my own observations 
represent it as consisting of a double spiral : and that there is so great a difference 
between his explanation and my own, of transverse “ cleavage.” It is true that I 
also have had recourse to the use of chemical reagents. But there is a wide differ- 
ence between the presence and the absence of a visible object immediately after the 
application of a chemical reagent, when the peculiar form of that object entitles it to 
be considered, not as a chemical compound, but as an organized structure (par. 95). 
123. Observers appear not to have determined the mode in which the “fibres” 
contained in hairs have their origin §. Young hair (wool) of the foetal sheep pre- 
sented to me the appearance, an outline of part of which is sketched in fig. 155. The 
hair-bulb contained nuclei, which seemed to be unwinding, watch-spring-like, into 
“ fibres,” that is, flat, grooved, and compound filaments (a), which I have already 
mentioned having seen in hair (par. 71)- These filaments, immediately after being 
given off from the nuclei, appeared to interlace. In the shaft they presented very 
much the same appearance as those in the olfactory nerve (fig. 108). The interla- 
cing of the filaments produces very remarkable appearances in the shaft of many 
hairs, as those of the Mouse, Mole, and Rabbit. 
f Bowman, l. c., p. 469. 
+ As in “ three fragments of a macerated heart.” Bowman, l. c., Plate XVI. fig. 17. 
§ See Simon, in Muller’s Archiv, 1841, Heft IV. p. 369 : by whom the researches of Henle, and those 
of Bidder are referred to. 
