THE PITUITARY BODY 



cells is less pronounced; the basophils, however, are (usually) 

 those of the pars intermedia (Herring, 1908). Those inter- 

 ested will find a detailed study of these cells in the human 

 pars neuralis, together with a discussion of the literature, in 

 the paper of Lewis and Lee (1927).^ 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ANATOMY OF THE PITUITARY BODY^ 



The pituitary during pregnancy. — As part of his study of 

 the interrelationship of the pituitary and the thyroid, Comte 

 (1898) reported that the pituitary of pregnant or parturient 

 women was greatly hypertrophied in three of six cases. 

 These pregnancy changes were studied in great detail by 

 Erdheim and Stumme (1909), who found that the only im- 

 portant changes were in the pars glandularis. They conclud- 

 ed that (i) the chief histological change consisted of the 

 appearance of "pregnancy-cells" apparently derived from 

 reserve cells, the homogeneous protoplasm of which became 

 enlarged and could be stained with eosin; (2) the number of 

 pregnancy-cells increased as pregnancy progressed so that in 

 the first half of pregnancy only true oxyphils were present in 

 greater numbers, whereas toward the end of pregnancy the 

 predominant cell type was the pregnancy-cell; (3) the 

 changes were more pronounced in the pituitaries of multi- 

 parae than in those of primiparae; and (4) even in primiparae, 

 months elapsed before the pituitary histologically resembled 

 that of nulliparae, although there was a reduction in the 

 number of pregnancy-cells a few weeks postpartum. 



Most German authors agree with the results and interpre- 

 tation of Erdheim and Stumme, Rasmussen (1934), however, 

 declared that the proportions of reserve, oxyphilic, and baso- 

 philic cells were practically unchanged in his material, al- 

 though there may have been a slight increase in the number 



^ Also see Pietsch (1930) and Rasmussen (1930). 



^ Other aspects of the physiological anatomy of the pituitary body are discussed 

 in the succeeding chapters. 



[20] 



