Female Axillary Apocrine Sweat Glands 195 



the period just before menopause, they are not numerous. The 

 majority of the glands are normal and their secretory cells are 

 tall columnar. In specimens from progressively older women 

 more tubules are lined with a flat epithelium and a larger 

 number of tubules is dilated. The lumen of the tubules lined 

 with the atrophied epithelium contains a flocculent residue, 

 in contrast to the lumen of normal tubules, the content of 

 which is always clear. The most marked ageing changes in 

 the axillary organ occur in the early fifties. At this period 

 many entire glandular systems become atrophied. Atrophy 

 and dilatation of the glands progresses very slowly from here 

 on. We have not found a single specimen, regardless of age, 

 in which there were not at least a few apparently normal and 

 functional glands. This point is subject to great individual 

 variation. In some individuals the glands become ineffective 

 much more rapidly than in others. Many of the tubules in the 

 axilla of a 78-year-old woman appeared normal. 



The assumption that the epithelium of these glands is 

 normal is drawn from several criteria. The epithelial cells, 

 although subject to variations, are usually tall columnar, with 

 some cytoplasmic extensions projecting from their apices. 

 The cells contain variable amounts of brown and yellow pig- 

 ment granules. The small yellow granules often contain iron 

 (Fig. 9), and the brown granules are usually sudanophilic 

 (Fig. 8), acid fast, autofluorescent, and Schiff-reactive (Fig. 6). 



In contrast with the glands which remain intact, the epithe- 

 lium of the glands which show atrophic changes has lost most 

 of the characteristic features found in apocrine cells. Morpho- 

 logically, the cells have lost the resemblance to secretory cells. 

 They may be so flat as to resemble endothelial cells (Fig. 10). 

 They rarely contain granules and pigment, lipid or iron. In 

 contrast with normal glands, which never contain it, glycogen 

 may be found in the epithelial cells (Fig. 11) and in the 

 myoepithelial cells of the atrophied tubules. In addition to 

 these granules of glycogen, the cells may also contain saliva- 

 resistant, Schiff-reactive granules. These same granules also 

 stain metachromatically with toluidine blue (Fig. 10). This 



