OOGENESIS IN THE WHITE MOUSE 281 



DISCUSSION: LITERATURE AND OBSERVATIONS 



The monographic work by von Winiwarter and Sainmont ('08) 

 on the organogenesis of the ovary and oogenesis in the cat has 

 had its influence on studies since made along similar lines, and 

 as has been mentioned above, their revision of von Winiwarter's 

 terminology has been adopted by a large number of authors. 

 But so far, no one, apparently, has called attention to a feature 

 of their work which seems to me to be rather inconsistent and 

 illogical. Their account of oogenesis is presented with great 

 care and attention to detail, but, as they themselves state, all 

 of the cells which go through this process degenerate, and not 

 one develops into a definitive ovum.^ It is not quite clear just 

 how the course of development of such cells, all of which de- 

 generate, constitutes oogenesis. If oogenesis be used in a broad 

 sense to mean the course of development of egg-cells, with no 

 regard to their ultimate fate, then perhaps, the application of the 

 term is justified here. However, if oogenesis is taken to mean 

 the development of the definitive ova, von Winiwarter and 

 Sainmont have not described such a process. 



They state that the definitive ova are formed by a renewed 

 activity of the germinal epithelium shortly before sexual matur- 

 ity.^ They merely mention this and say a full description will 

 follow later. In a note appearing in 1908 at about the same 

 as their memoir (von Winiwarter and Sainmont '08""), they 

 discuss very briefly (four pages) the post-foetal formation of ova 

 in the cat. They state here that the question of a new formation 



^ "Au second chapitre du present memoire nous avons demontre que les cor- 

 dons corticaux ou tubes de Pfliiger ainsi que toutes les formations auxquelles ils 

 donnent naissance (ovules, follicules primordiaux, follicules de de Graaf de- 

 veloppes) ne sont que productions transitoires, au meme titre que les cordons 

 medullaires." (Von Winiwater and Sainmont, '08, p. 165.) 



3 "Pendant que ces dernieres modifications se deroulent I'activite de I'assise 

 epitheliale entre une derniere fois en jeu pour aboutir aux invaginations epithe- 



liales Ces invaginations, jointes aux cellules folliculeuses de zone 



corticale primitive, aboutissent k la formation de la zone corticale definitive 

 de I'ovaire, h laquelle, seule, sera reservee la production des oeufs definitifs. 

 Son histoire appartient a un chapitre ulterieur." (Von Winiwarter and Sain- 

 mont, '08, p. 259-260.) 



