530 GENCHO FUJIMUKA 



various cells of the placenta and the decidua, we will find that 

 all of them are well furnished with various conditions which 

 mark the glandular cells above referred to, and that naturally we 

 should assert the existence of secretory processes in them also. 

 In the following section, I will give a detailed account of the 

 secretory phenomena of the various cell groups. 



THE PHENOMENA OF INTERNAL SECRETION IN VARIOUS CELLS 

 OF THE PLACENTA AND DECIDUA 



It is too plain to need argument that in all cases the real state 

 of the life processes of any cell cannot be made clear unless all 

 the phenomena in the living condition of the cell concerned be 

 followed up closely with the microscope. However, since it 

 is certainly difficult to attain such an object by the histologi- 

 cal method employed by us at the present time, by noting the 

 phenomena of internal secretion it is possible to denote each of 

 the extremely varied structural images obtained from the prep- 

 arations fixed and stained as indicating a certain period in the 

 phenomena of secretion; to compare carefully and consider the 

 correlations between the different periods, and thus to infer the 

 whole of the process of secretion. Therefore, I must ask the 

 reader to take this point into consideration. 



1. The phenomena of internal secretion in the syncytium layer 



Now, at first, in figures 1 and 2 only plastosomes are present, 

 and lipoid granules and vacuoles are entirely absent, so that 

 we may conclude that this shows the early stage at which secre- 

 tion is not yet in appearance or when secretion is at rest. In 

 the next place, in figures 3 and 4, more or less lipoids appear, 

 and vacuoles are either barely found at one part or not formed 

 as yet; the lipoids, in general first appear on the superficial 

 layer, at which place they tend to grow up and increase gradu- 

 ally. The plastosomes have decreased considerably in quantity 

 especially in figure 4. The last two figures may be taken as the 

 early stage of secretion in the syncytium layer, and as it passed to 

 the subsequent stage, a large number of vacuoles, viz., secre- 



