Medical Officers of the Army of India.
29
tions of normal dermal tissue, numerous specimens are also present. Here also
as in the superior stratum they frequently are specially conspicuous in the
neighbourhood of altered hair-follicles. The large masses of neoplasm around
the sweat-glands and larger vascular trunks, too, often contain an abundance
of them, while smaller numbers or isolated specimens are present in many of the
masses of neoplasm generally distributed throughout the entire system of
interstitial spaces. Here, as in the upper stratum, it is in the central portions
of the tumour that they occur in largest numbers.
Their distribution is not, however, limited to the epidermal and dermal
strata, for on passing downwards to the subcutaneous tissues scattered specimens
may be found even in the very deepest parts. The numbers actually present
in different sites varies in proportion to the degree to which these have become
the sites of invasion by masses of lymphoid elements, but even where this has
taken place only to a very limited extent, isolated specimens may be encountered
(Plate I., Figs. 6, 7). For example, the specimens shown in Plate I., Figs. 4, 5;
Plate II., Fig. 1, are situated in one of the interstitial spaces between the cells in
fat-lobules in which an accumulation of lymphoid elements has only just begun
to occur.
There can, then, be no doubt that in this specimen of "Delhi Boil" these
peculiar bodies are generally distributed throughout the entire extent of the
morbid tissue, and that the numbers of them present in particular areas corre
- s p o n d g e n e r a l l y w i t h t h e d e g r e e t o w h i c h t h e m o r b i d p r o c e s s h a s a d v a n c e d t h e r e .
It remains now to consider the question of the nature of these bodies and
of the relation which they may be regarded as holding to the disease.
Unfortunately it is as yet impossible to come to definite conclusions on
either of these points. The cells have as yet only been observed in preserved
tissues, and without definite data regarding their development and life-history
generally the utmost that can be done is to indicate probabilities regarding their
nature. After very careful consideration of the features presented by all the
various forms present in the tissues, I am inclined to regard them as represent
- i n g v a r i o u s s t a g e s o f s o m e s i m p l e o r g a n i s m o f M y c e t o z o i c n a t u r e . I n t h e m o s t
recent systematic treatise dealing with the Mycetozoa or Myxomycetes—Zopf's
"Schleimpilze" they are subdivided into Monadinæ and Eumycetozoa, and
it is to the former group that the organism here dealt with appears to me pro
-bably to belong. The appearances presented by the various forms are, accord
-ing to this view, to be regarded as corresponding to various stages of the de
- v e l o p m e n t , a n d s p e c i a l l y o f t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f t h e Z o o c y s t s o r S p o r o c y s t s ,
of some Monadinic organism. Comparing the characters of the various speci
- m e n s w i t h o n e a n o t h e r , w e h a v e a p p a r e n t l y t o d e a l w i t h t h e d e v e l o p m e n t
of parent plasmodia or amœbæ which multiply by division, and in which sporoid
bodies are gradually developed, the process terminating in some cases with the
formation of one .great spore, in others with that of a dense aggregate of smaller