INTERSTITIAL CELLS OF MAMMALIAN 0^•ARY 61 



that of Tourneux ('79), earlier workers (Born '74; Slavjansky 

 '79) seeing the cells but not identifying or discussing them. 

 Tourneux compared them directly with the interstitial cells of 

 the testis, applying to them — apparently for the first time — the 

 same name. He compared them also with the cells of the supra- 

 renal gland, coccygeal gland, carotid gland and the decidual 

 cells of the uterus, adding them to the list of cells already grouped 

 together by Mihalkovics (73) and Waldeyer ('74). The term 

 'interstitial cells' (of the ovary) was immediately applied to 

 them by MacLeod ('80) and has persisted up to the present. 

 Some seven w^orkers dealt with the ovarian interstitial cells be- 

 tween 1880 and 1898 when the papers of Kolliker, Clark and 

 Rabl appeared and since then the interstitial cells of the ovary 

 have received an increasing amount of attention. Four aspects 

 of the historical growth of knowledge of these cells seem to the 

 writer worthy of emphasis : (a) their relation to the tunica thecae 

 interna and atresia follicuh; (b) their comparison with the cells 

 of the corpus luteum (lutein cells) ; (c) then- granular and lipoid 

 content; (d) their significance and their interpretation as con- 

 stituting an 'interstitial gland.' 



An association of the interstitial cells with the tunica interna 

 of the follicular theca was recognized almost from the time of 

 their first observation although the relation given was the re- 

 verse of that which subsequent observers determined to be the 

 correct one. His ('65) made the tentative suggestion that his 

 'granule cells' give rise to this layer of the follicular wall. Harz 

 ('83) inclined to the same view. Less emi)hatically or clearl}^ 

 stated, in the contributions of workers before 1898 (i.e., Paladino 

 '88, Janosik '88, Schottlander '91, '93, Storkel, and others) the 

 derivation of these cells from the internal theca of immature 

 follicles undergoing regression, has been shown beyond all ques- 

 tion for a large number of mammals of several orders — including 

 man — through the investigations of KolHker ('98), Rabl ('98), 

 Clark ('98), Van der Stricht ('01, '12), Limon ('02), Allen ('04), 

 Seitz ('06), Wallart ('07), Fellner ('09), Regaud and Dubreuil 

 ('07) and others, some of these writers laying their emphasis on 

 the atresia folliculi, others on the interstitial cells. It was to 



