THE HORMONES IN HUMAN REPRODUCTION 



The grafts survive and grow. They respond to estrogenic 

 hormone, injected under the skin, by swelling and growing 

 just as if they were still part of the uterus. If the ovaries 

 are removed, the grafts undergo castrate atrophy. Most 

 astonishing of all, when menstruation occurs in the uterus, 

 it occurs at the same time in the eye-graft, runs the same 

 course, and ceases at the same time. The menstrual hemor- 

 rhage which occurs in the eye, stains and clouds the aqueous 

 humor for a few days but soon clears away. 



Markee was able to watch the process through the micro- 

 scope, using low to moderate magnification, from 12 to 150 

 times. What he saw has helped us greatly to understand the 

 nature of the menstrual breakdown, although (as we shall 

 see) there is much still to be learned. Markee tells us that 

 the first sign of impending menstruation in the eye-graft 

 is blanching of the tissues due to shutting off of the blood 

 flow by contraction of the coiled arteries. This does not 

 happen in all the arteries of the graft at one time, but in 

 individual arteries, so that blanched patches appear here 

 and there in the graft, until all the tissues ultimately experi- 

 ence the blanching. After a few hours this phase wears off. 

 Through the relaxed arteries the blood flows again with 

 renewed force, but the tissues of the endometrium and 

 especially the capillary blood vessels have sufi^ered from 

 the lack of blood supply. Here and there the small vessels 

 give way and burst, causing tiny spurts of blood into the 

 tissues. The little pools of blood thus produced coalesce and 

 drain into the anterior chamber of the eye. In the uterus 

 itself, similar hemorrhages are of course discharged into the 

 cavity of the uterus. After a few days this strange series 

 of events is over, and the damage is promptly repaired. 



With Markee's direct observations to guide us, the study 

 of prepared specimens of the uterus is much clearer. Obser- 

 vations by the two methods agree perfectly, but without 

 observations of the eye-grafts we should probably not have 



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