SECRETORY FUNCTIONS IN HUMAN PLACENTA 513 



are but few yellowish lipoid granules. The nucleus has a con- 

 spicuous network. 



As the change of the glandular cells reaches a high degree, 

 the cells leave the basement membrane in large numbers and 

 are isolated in the glandular lumen. Such cells I call tempo- 

 rarily the 'desquamated cells' in contrast to the cells which 

 continue to settle on the basement membrane or remain 

 fixed on the walls. Figures 81 to 83 illustrate my so-called 

 desquamated cells, in the inside of whose cell bodies there are 

 many vacuoles and a small number of extremely small lipoid 

 granules which are stained in black.. At a glance they look 

 like the 'wall-fixed' cells, and yet on a careful comparison we 

 find that there is a more or less remarkable difference between 

 them. That is to say, in the desquamated cells the cell bodies 

 are in general somewhat turbid, and also the vacuoles look 

 somewhat withered and decayed. No plastosomes are to be 

 found, and, besides, the change of the nucleus is remarkable, 

 as will be seen in figure 81. Here it is converted into a dark- 

 colored and homogeneous lump provided with a very irregular 

 contour, having within a few small nucleole-like bodies. In 

 figure 82, as before, the nucleus is simply a homogeneous and 

 dark-colored lump; in figure 83 it has swollen somewhat re- 

 markably, and the nuclear network is extraordinarily conspic- 

 uous. In short, the desquamated cells have undoubtedly began 

 a retrogressive degeneration already, and from the existence of 

 manj^ broken pieces of cells which are always found in the gland- 

 ular lumen it can be simultaneously demonstrated that the des- 

 quamated cells are doomed to break up and perish at this sec- 

 tion sooner or later. The various changes undergone by the 

 glandular cells described above are seen in a remarkable degree al- 

 ready on about the seventeenth or eighteenth day of pregnancy 

 in the decidua serotina, while in the decidua vera it is a little bit 

 later and the changes are noticed to about the same degree as the 

 former only toward the end of the first month of pregnancy. Both 

 reach the maximal changes at about the end of the first month of 

 of pregnancy, and on the days following they gradually pass into 

 the so-called desquamated cells and break up and perish as such. 



