A Query of so-called “Rouget cell”

Since the observation of Stricker, it has been known that capillaries were capable of independent contraction. Golubew and Tarchanoff made a similar observation on the capillaries of the tadpole's tail and attributed the contraction to a swelling of “Spindle elements” in the vessel wall. Rouget in the course of histological study, described about branched cells, which he held to be muscle cells surrounding certain capillaries and in a later study he found this same type of adventitial non-pigmented cell to be present on the capillaries of the tadpole's tail. These observations were followed by Meyer, Steinach and Kahn and Vimtrup. They recognized that the contraction of capillaries was due to that of these cells. But recently Flory and Carleton disowned the existence of these cells in their histological study of blood capillaries. In my histological observation I could not find the so-called “Rouget cells” and have come to the following conclusion that it is doubtful whether the presence of Rouget cells has the ncessary relation with the contraction of capillaries, for I could not find those cells on the capillaries in the mesentery of a grown-up frog, though Rouget and others succeeded in finding those cells on the capillaries of the tadpole's tail.

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