HISTOLOGIOAL NOTI3S.
191
Histological Notes.
By
Httneage Glfobes, M.I>.,
Lecturer on Physiology and on Normal and Morbid Histology, in the Medical
School of the Westminster Hospital.
I.—CILIATED EPITHELIUM IN THE KIDNEY.
IN 1880 Dr. Klein found ciliated epithelium in the kidney
of a mouse. He has published an account of this in the April
number of this Journal for 1881.
He describes the cilia as occurring in the convoluted tubes
near the Malpighian corpuscles.
At Dr. Klein's suggestion I carried out this inquiry in the
kidneys of different animals. I found them in the kidney of
the white rat, brown rat, guinea-pig, and dog.
It is necessary to harden the kidney in alcohol to bring out
the cilia clearlj ; if chromic acid or Miiller's fluid is used, they
cannot be made out so well.
To show them well the sections must be very thin; they
may be cut with the Williams' freezing microtone, and care
must be taken in transferring them from the different reagents.
The cilia appear to be in that portion of the convoluted tube
near the Malpighian corpuscles, but 1 have also found them in
transverse sections of tubes which may have been further
They are short and very fine, set densely on the free edge
of the cell.
A magnifying power of 500 diameters shows them very well.
Mr. J. W. Groves, of King's College, has also observed
cilia in the kidney of the dog.
192
DR. HENEAGE GIBBES.
I next examined a number of kidneys from the human foetus
about full time. In every case where the kidney was fresh
and had been hardened in alcohol, I found the cilia in the convoluted tubes. They seemed to be much more widely distributed than in the adult animals I had previously examined.
They were to be seen in many more tubes in one field of the
microscope, and they were present in a large number of transverse sections of convoluted tubes. It appeared, in fact, as if
they were present in all the convoluted tubes, proximal and
distal. They are very minute, and there are a large number on
each cell; they require great care in the preparation to show
them well, and the sections must be very thin. I found logwood to be the best stain to bring them out.
The kidney must be perfectly fresh.
I examined a large number of adult human kidneys without
finding any cilia in the convoluted tubes. I attributed this to
the difficulty of obtaining them in a perfectly fresh state. I
found traces in some, but it was not until last year (1882) that
I succeeded in getting them out satisfactorily.
A case of progressive pernicious anaemia was sent me for
examination, and on making specimens of the kidney after
hardening, I found that numbers of the convoluted tubes
contained cilia.
They resembled those in the foetal human kidney, but were
not so widely distributed. They are shorter than those found
in the kidney of the mouse and rat, and they are very much
finer and more numerous than the cilia on the cells of the
human trachea.
In the adult kidney they stained deeply at the base, giving
the appearance of a dark line at the free edge of the cell.
They can be easily seen with a | t h objective, but the
binocular microscope," with either a £th or £th, brings them
out very plainly.
Professor Tuttle, of Ohio, has observed cilia in human
kidneys from cases of smallpox, also in kittens.
HISTOLOGIOAL NOTES.
193
II.—STRIPED MUSCULAR TISSUE ATTACHED TO HAIR
FOLLICLES.
While making an examination into the structure of the
tactile hair follicles, I found that they are moved by muscles
composed of striped muscle tissue, and that they differ in this
from the ordinary hair follicle.
These striped muscle fibres are very long and slender; they
vary in number; in some parts there are only two or three, in
others seven or eight. They have no special fibrous tissue
surrounding them, but run side by side in the connective tissue
round the follicle.
They are inserted into the follicle near the base, on either
side. Their insertion appears to extend for some little distance
round the base, and in the central portion of the insertion the
most fibres are found. They run to the surface close by the
side of the follicle at its wide part; but where it narrows
they suddenly diverge, and, proceeding obliquely, terminate in
the fibrous tissue.
In many cases they can be traced to the fibrous tissue
lying under the superficial epithelium.