Since the recognition of the rôle of the reticuloendothelial system in metabolic diseases, there have been an increasing number of observations indicating that disturbances in metabolism may lead to morphologic changes in various organs, especially those of the hematopoietic and lymphatic systems. The lipoid cell hyperplasia occurring in diabetes, described by Schultze1 and by Oppenheimer and Fishberg,2 Gaucher's disease and Niemann-Pick's diseases are examples of this. It is believed, especially by Pick,3 that in those conditions there is a disturbance of metabolism which leads to the accumulation of lipoid substances in the blood and the other tissues. In diabetes the lipoid cell hyperplasia may occur secondarily to the primary metabolic disturbance.
Gaucher's disease and Niemann-Pick's disease, on the other hand, are constitutional diseases, familial in incidence and showing a racial predisposition, the majority of cases occurring in Jews. As distinguished from Gaucher's disease, which is chronic in