312 STUDIES ON PATHOLOGIC OVA. 



if near to them, in the stroma of the villus. However, this difficulty is entirely 

 avoided by examining the older specimens without nucleated reds, for, since 

 Hofbauer cells are always nucleated, except in their very last stages, confusion 

 with nucleated cells is thus avoided. 



Although the elimination of the erythroblast as the source of the Hofbauer 

 cell was thus very easy, some difficulty was encountered, strangely enough, with 

 regard to polymorphonuclear leucocytes. This is largely due to the fact that the 

 nucleus of the latter often ceases to be polymorphous as these cells degenerate. 

 Instances of this kind are quite common, especially in the membranes of hemor- 

 rhagic or infected abortuses. They are, however, also met with in the decidua. 

 Since the polymorphous character of the nuclei of these leucocytes can usually 

 be recognized without difficulty in degenerate accumulations of pus, I was at first 

 predisposed against regarding a circular nucleus as possibly polymorphous in 

 origin, but careful scrutiny of numerous specimens in which these misleading 

 degeneration forms occurred soon left no doubt as to the facts. 



As stated above, Hofbauer cells were found in the cavity of the chorionic 

 vesicle in abortuses which contained blood or had become infected. In these 

 specimens the degenerated polymorphonuclear leucocytes usually lie in groups, 

 or more commonly in rows along the inner borders of the chorionic membrane, 

 or in long narrow clefts or folds of the same. Some also were scattered about 

 among the degenerating erythrocytes, but an examination of the contained blood 

 usually surprises one by the entire absence, not only of well-preserved polymorpho- 

 nuclear leucocytes, but of all leucocytes whatsoever. This is in marked contrast to 

 what is found in the case of ordinary hemorrhages and is a fact full of signifi- 

 cance for the question under discussion. Most of the degenerated polymorpho- 

 nuclear leucocytes, many of which contained undoubted evidence of phago- 

 cytosis, possessed a relatively small, circular, vesicular nucleus which often was 

 eccentric in position. Others were filled with a granular cytoplasm, or even with 

 very discrete golden granules, while still others were filled with dark, black pig- 

 ment granules corresponding in size to the golden ones. Here and there the field 

 of degenerating erythrocytes may also be studded with masses of pigment which 

 clearly declare their origin by the presence of all manner of transition forms be- 

 tween the well-preserved, easily recognizable polymorphonuclear leucocytes and 

 the disintegrated pigmented detritus. The phagocytic nature of these cells is 

 especially noticeable in the specimens of young chorionic vesicles, with nucleated 

 reds, stained with iron hematoxylin, for in these the leucocytes are often seen 

 filled with a mass of nuclei only. 



Similar appearances can also be seen occasionally in the deciduae from cases 

 of endometritis, as well as in portions of a decidua in which the glands have under- 

 gone considerable maceration and degeneration. In the former the polymorpho- 

 nuclear leucocyte is the misleading form, while in the latter the degenerating, cast- 

 off glandular epithelial cells simulate Hofbauer cells in almost every morphologic 

 detail. I have also seen similar specimens of degenerated polymorphonuclear 

 leucocytes in ill-preserved hemorrhagic lymph-nodes, especially from cases of 



