An arrangement so definite ought to be easily made out in sections,
yet I have not been able to find it so. My sections show considerable
difference in the amount of pigmentation even in material preserved with
the same killing agent. If the retina is heavily pigmented the ends
of the cells have the appearance shown in Fig. 62, which represents
a portion of a cross-section. The ends are seen as clearly defined
polygonal areas differing among themselves in size, but not showing
two types of size, or two kinds of pigmentation, the one uniform, the
other a ring of pigment around a highly refracting central portion. If
the retina is but slightly pigmented--and some were so light as to make
depigmentation unnecessary--a difference is seen in the pigment, as
shown in Fig. 63, but in no case were areas found that showed a highly
refracting centre surrounded by a ring of pigment. (The unexplained
structures in Fig. 63 will be referred to a little later.)
Figures 59-62 are a series of four successive sections drawn with the
camera lucida for comparison with Schewiakoff’s Figs. 20 and 19, and to
show that the presence of two types of cells plainly marked within the
retina by the position of the nuclei at different levels is at least not
clearly demonstrated. Only the nuclei are drawn, since the cell bodies
are not easily distinguished from the surrounding fibres. The eye is the
same as that from which Fig. 72 was made. Fig. 59 shows a relatively
small number of nuclei of slightly larger size than usual. These I take
for two reasons to be nuclei of the ganglion cells that are found in the
fibres at the base of the retinal cells (Figs. 58, _gc_, 69 and 72). They
are the first nuclei struck in tracing sections toward the retina, and
in the series from which Fig. 58 was taken similar nuclei appeared in
both transverse and radial cuts through the retina stained brightly and
clearly with hæmatoxylin, whereas the nuclei of the retinal cells proper
were stained a diffuse brownish-yellow from pigment that had evidently
gone into solution. Fig. 60 shows the closely aggregated, smaller nuclei
of the retinal cells surrounded by the nuclei of the outlying ganglion
cells. Schewiakoff’s corresponding drawing (’89, Fig. 20) shows at this
level a definite alternation of the bodies and nuclei of unpigmented
visual cells, with the smaller, pigmented, proximal processes of the
pigment cells. In the next section (Fig. 61) the pigmented ends of a
few of the cells have been struck, and the following section (Fig. 62)
shows that, in this heavily pigmented specimen at least, there is no good
evidence within the retina itself of two kinds of cells, so that it is
apparent that at any rate we cannot accept Schewiakoff’s conception of
the structure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account