Abstract
Hueper 1 indicated that in certain tumor cells the correlation between chromatin material in stained sections and the mineral residue after microincineration was not as close as might be supposed from my studies of similar and of other material (Scott 2 , 3 , 4 ). From Hueper's extension of his remarks to other classes of material, protozoa, etc., studied by me it might be inferred that he believed his observations on tumors to be of general significance. Cowdry, 5 Rector and Rector, 6 Policard, 7 Kruszynski 8 and others have amply demonstrated with various kinds of mammalian tissues, both normal and pathological, that my observations are not unique. Examination of a large series of human tumor and cancer tissues of many sorts collected and described in part by Olch 9 served to confirm in detail my previous statements made with regard to the ash-bearing chromatin material. Studies of an incinerated series of sections of embryos (chick, rat, mouse and cat) have given additional confirmatory evidence.
By taking advantage of 2 recently developed technical procedures a means was found of experimentally checking these observations. Tissues (liver and testis) of rats, guinea pigs and cats were subjected to ultra-centrifuging, as described by Beams, King and Risley, 10 at 100,000 times gravity. The centrifuge cup with its contents was frozen in liquid air and placed in a specially designed low temperature vacuum dehydrator. All water was removed while the tissues were kept frozen at —32°C. Tissues so treated were embedded in paraffine after the method advised by Gersh 11 and Bensley. 12 Serial sections were made and alternate ones stained by several methods; the remaining sections were incinerated and examined with the darkfield microscope.
Stained sections of centrifuged tissues show the chromatin material packed at the centrifugal pole of the nucleus, against the nuclear membrane.
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