R. R. Bensley 107 
referred to the same category. Cardiac glands have also been demon- 
strated by Oppel, 96, in Dasyurus and Perameles. The glands de- 
scribed by Salomon in the ccecal sac of Cercopithecus and Inuus are also 
in all probability cardiac glands, although the author did not recognize 
them as such. 
Ellenberger, 88, not only dissented from the commonly accepted 
view that the cardiac glands are mucous glands, but went farther and 
attempted a solution of the question of their physiological réle. He 
found, in conjunction with Hofmeister, 85, that the cardiac glands of 
the pig contained a diastatic ferment. Negrini, 86, also asserts the 
presence of an amylolytic ferment in the cardiac mucosa of the pig, in 
greater quantities than could be accounted for by the amount of blood 
present in the organ. The results of Ellenberger and Hofmeister are 
confirmed by Edelmann who tried many of the so-called mucin stains 
with negative results. Edelmann’s explanation of the function of the 
cardiac glands is as follows: 
“Die physiologische Bedeutung der Cardiadriisenregion beruht in der 
Bildung einer Art Vorraum im Magen, welcher keine Saure, dagegen Fer- 
mentquellen enthilt, und in dem die Verdauung der Starke vor sich gehen 
kann.” “Als Schleimbildende Driisen sind die Cardiadrtisen nicht auf- 
zufassen.” 
Schaffer, 97, also, in his recent studies on the human cardiac glands, 
ranges himself on the side of Edelmann and Ellenberger as to the serous 
nature of the cardiac glands. Using the more precise mucus stains re- 
cently devised by Mayer, he was unable to obtain any reaction in the 
cells of the cardiac glands, which he, therefore, compares to the chief 
cells of the fundus glands, and to the pyloric gland cells. 
There is some danger of attaching too much importance to these 
negative results of Schaffer and Edelmann. In the first place, mucin is 
not a single chemical substance for which it is possible to establish 
definite staining reactions, which will enable us to demonstrate it 
wherever it occurs. There are on the contrary good reasons for suppos- 
ing that, as Huppert, 96, points out, the number of mucins belonging to 
a single class, the glycoproteids, are as numerous as the albumens which 
are available for entering into such a combination with a sugar. In 
the second place, the morphological evidence adduced by Krause, 95, 
and Langley, 84, in the salivary glands and the chemical experiments 
of Hammarsten, all point to the conclusion that there are several stages 
in the elaboration of mucins in secreting cells. It is probable also that 
there exist in mucin-forming cells differences of secretory equilibrium 
analogous to those which have been noted by Langley in pepsin-form- 
