Observations on the Origin, Distribution and Significance of Fuchsin Bodies, with Special Staining Technique

IN SUMMARIZING THE RESULTS OF THIS WORK I FEEL JUSTIFIED IN DRAWING THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS: 1. The fuchsin body represents a type of body subject to wide variations in morphology and in staining reaction. 2. Though more frequently associated with plasma cells than with any other cell type, these bodies may and do occur in a great variety of cells. 3. Further, certain sections show unmistakable fuchsin bodies within blood vessels; some of these bodies are true hyaline thrombi, while others are due to autolytic changes in the red blood corpuscles. 4. Fuchsin bodies are most numerous in granulation tissue and lymphoid areas. In the former, they follow closely the distribution of capillaries and show a parallel with the changes in the extra- and intravascular red blood corpuscles. 5. The number and type of fuchsin bodies in tissues can be influenced by methods of fixation, the number of typical bodies being inversely proportional to the rapidity and degree of fixation of the red blood cells. 6. The type of body found after the best fixation is not, as a rule, what is considered the typical form, but an irregular fragmentary type or the fuchsinophilic granular form. 7. The identity in staining reaction, the constant association with changes in red blood corpuscles, the relation to distribution of capillaries in granulation tissues, the occurrence in hemorrhagic lesions associated with pigment, the intravascular occurrence, and, finally, the close relation to pigment deposits, all indicate conclusively that fuchsin bodies arise from red blood corpuscles. 8. No theory of origin from plasma cells, or other granular cells, offers an adequate explanation for the origin of fuchsin bodies, nor can any theory prove adequate which does not take into account the red blood corpuscles. 9. The peculiar association of plasma cells with fuchsin bodies and hemosiderin seems explainable on the assumption that the plasma cell in such instances is the active factor in a metabolic process, the fuchsin body representing a stage in the metabolism of hemoglobin by an intracellular enzyme, and hemosiderin, one of the products of the process.