Reticulin and Collagen

A RECENT letter by Little and Kramer 1 reporting some studies on reticulin prompts the submission of a preliminary account of some similar investigations now in progress. Attempts to determine the relation between collagen and reticular fibres using the electron microscope to examine teased-out or otherwise broken-down tissues are open to the criticism that the fibres observed are not histologically identifiable. Kramer and Little appear to have overcome this objection and to have reached the conclusion that the fibrils of reticulin have the same structure as collagen fibrils—a conclusion which the following experiments confirm.