Dr. Emil Holmgren and the liver cell / by E.A. Schäfer.

  • Sharpey-Schäfer, E. A. (Edward Albert), Sir, 1850-1935.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Emil Holmgren and the liver cell / by E.A. Schäfer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Abdruck nus: Anatomisclier Anzeiger. Centralbltttt fiir die gcsumte wisseuschaftliche Anatoraie. Amtliches Orgnn der Anutomischen Gesellschaft. Veiiag von Gustav Fisclier iu Jena. XXIIl. Band, No. 1. 1903. Nachdruck verboten. Dr. Emil Holmgren and the Liver Cell. By E. A. ScHAPBR, Edinburgh, c. In the Anatomisclier Anzeiger, Bd. 21, p. 488 Dr. E. Holmgren, referring to the so-called ScHAFERsche Praparate of liver — a phrase for which it appears to rae SiMPSONSche Praparate might appropriately be substituted — endeavours to explain the appearances vehich these preparations exhibit by supposing them to be artefacts resulting from an interstitial extravasation of the injection-material between the liver cells and the vascular wall; which material has thence forced its way into the cell protoplasm. His actual words are as follows: Gegen Browicz bin ich jedoch sehr im Zweifel, ob wirklich hierbei natiirliche Bildungen vorliegen. Meinerseits bin ich vielmehr sehr geneigt, anzunehmen, daC Schaper infolge einer ge- waltsamen Injektion allerlei Kunstprodukte vor sich gehabt hat. And in a more recent paper in this Journal (Bd. 22, p. 315, 316) he ex- presses himself in somewhat similar terms. In support of this opinion Dr. Holmgren reproduces a drawing from one of these preparations, which drawing according to him shows such an extravasation lying in a space between the vascular wall and the adjacent liver cells and communicating with varicose canals within the cells (but not with the interior of the blood-vessel). Whilst I do not deny that small extravasations are here and there to be found in these preparations — they are indeed always readily produced in making injections of liver — nor indeed did I omit to mention the circumstance in my original description of the preparations, I have nevertheless pointed out^) and must here again insist upon the fact that it is precisely in the neighbourhood of extravas- ations that the injection of the intracellular canaliculi fails or is incomplete while it is quite perfect in all other parts of the preparation. In my opinion Dr. Holmgren has misinterpreted the appearances which he has delineated. From a careful examination of similar specimens I am convinced that the clear line which he has described as the capillary wall and which shows no structure, is nothing but a cleft produced by the shrinkage of the gelatine under the action of the alcohol used for hardening and dehydrating the specimen; and that what he looks upon as extravascular extravasation is a part of the mass which has adhered to the wall of the vessel from which the more central part has shrunk away. Such appearances are common in gelatine-injected preparations where, as in the liver, the capillaries are prevented from following the shrinkage of the 1) Anat. Anz., Bd. 21, p. 19.