ORIGIN OF THE CORPUS LUTEUM 127 



Four recent writers upon the human ovary have repeated the 

 same views as Meyer with but slight modifications. Elizabeth 

 Wolz ('12), from the study of a few specimens, believes that none 

 of the theca interna cells suffer change into connective tissue. 

 Some degenerate by atrophy, others remain in situ a long time. 

 Timofeiev ('13) l and Wallart ('14) appear to have given as ac- 

 curate and modern a description as is possible in the face of the 

 particular difficulties of the human material. Careful menstrual 

 histories are given, and both used varied and interesting histo- 

 logical methods. According to both, the theca interna cells 

 remain in groups about the periphery, of the corpus luteum for a 

 long time, as described by Meyer, and they slowly atrophy. 

 None of them are converted into spindle-shaped connective-tissue 

 cells. Timofeiev describes also the deposition of lipoid bodies 

 in the granulosa lutein cells during the first days of the new corpus 

 luteum. Lastly, Novak ('16) reports five early corpora similar 

 to those of Meyer, whose conclusions he follows. 



PREVIOUS WORK ON THE CORPUS LUTEUM OF THE SOW 



It is said that von Baer's celebrated monograph ('27) announcing 

 the discovery of the mammalian ovum, contains a description of 

 the early corpus luteum of the sow. The first account of the 

 histological development in swine which has come into my hands, 

 however, is that of Zwicky ('44), entitled "De corporum luteo- 

 rum origine." Zwicky was a medical student who was set to 

 work by the distinguished Henle to study the formation of con- 

 nective tissue in fibrin clots, Henle being under the mistaken im- 

 pression that the corpus luteum represented the conversion of the 

 clotted follicular haemorrhage into scar tissue. The student was 

 acute enough to correct his master's error, even though he found 

 haemorrhage into the follicle in two-thirds of the early corpora 

 lutea of swine. As a result of his studies, he announced himself 

 as on the side of von Baer and Bischoff in favor of the granulosa 



1 This Russian dissertation seems to me the best contribution to the origin 

 of the human corpus luteum yet presented. As it was abstracted for me by a 

 Russian-speaking scientific colleague, not especially acquainted with histological 

 methods, I quote it with some slight hesitation, but I believe our interpretation 

 is correct. 



THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ANATOMY, VOL. 26, NO. 1 



