SPECIMENS COMPOSED OF VILLI ONLY. 59 



not be certain of one's diagnosis in every instance. If more villi were present this 

 difficulty would be obviated, although it must be remembered that a large series 

 of specimens necessarily supplement each other. Furthermore, the changes in 

 many villi are so typical, both as to outward form and structure, as to be undoubted. 

 Since many of the villi were decidedly degenerate, one could hardly expect to find 

 much proliferation of the endothelium, but remarkable specimens, such as that in 

 figure 9, were occasionally found. In some cases the presence of hydatiform 

 degeneration became probable only through comparison of the villi in question 

 with those found in many undoubted cases of hydatiform degeneration examined 

 previously. 



Two unusually fine specimens of hydatiform degeneration were transferred 

 to this from group 2. No. 367 was a fine, clear, partly cystic specimen in which 

 syncytial buds were invading the stroma of some of the villi. Although only 

 vestiges of the vessels remain, the trophoblast is well preserved and syncytial 

 buds are found on some of the trophoblastic nodules. The outlines of many villi 

 are very sinuous and the epithelium is well preserved. In some respects this is 

 one of the most unusual specimens I have found in the entire series, both of ectopic 

 and uterine specimens. In the other specimen, No. 720, some of the implanted 

 villi which remain show hydatiform degeneration, and many of them have fine, 

 long syncytial buds. Although no vessels were seen in this specimen, the tropho- 

 blast nevertheless is abundant. 



In the 5 cases above mentioned the presence of hydatiform degeneration was 

 undoubted, and in 6 others its presence was highly probable, making 11 cases, or 

 26.2 per cent of the entire group. This is a somewhat lower incidence than in the 

 uterine cases in this group, which was 37.5 per cent. Either the tube-wall or the 

 contained clot gave evidence of the presence of infection in 8 of these 11 cases. If 

 we exclude one case in which the tube was not included in the section, we get a 

 percentage of infiltration of 80. Moreover, since only a few sections of each 

 specimen wepe examined, and since the evidences of an old infection are not always 

 easily detected in a markedly dilated and altered tube, it is not improbable that 

 infiltration was present in more of these cases of hydatiform degeneration, as was 

 the case in the uterine specimens. The existing infiltration was intense in one 

 and slight in the other half, and since only one case not included among those 

 showing hydatiform degeneration had an apparently normal tube, infiltration 

 hence was almost constantly present also in the entire series of cases included in 

 the group of the tubal specimens. 



Although the alleged menstrual age ranged from 6 to 113 days, only a rough 

 correspondence between it and the structure of the specimens was found to exist. 

 The specimen with the longest duration contained only a few questionable degen- 

 erate syncytial remnants, and in No. 9000, which had a menstrual age of 69 days, 

 no embryonic remnants whatever were found. No. 967c, which had a menstrual 

 age of 70 to 100 days, contained only a few degenerate villi, although the same 

 thing was true also in other instances with a much shorter duration. 



