546 GENCHO FUJIMURA 



or exhausted in the formation of lipoids. However, in the Lang- 

 hans' cells, the stroma cells of vilH, and in the decidual cells 

 sometimes, when the functions have advanced considerably, 

 the plastosomes not only show no sign of their decrease, but 

 also increase and present more or less conspicuous groups in a 

 limited section of the cell body. This apparently contradicts 

 the statement given above, but, practically, the reverse is the 

 case. It is probable that the plastosomes consumed partly by 

 the functions performed, are increased and replenished, provid- 

 ing for the repetition of secondary and tertiary functions; by 

 such an assumption the significance of the increase of plastosomes 

 in these cases will be made naturally clear, so that the various 

 images described above do support with more force, instead of 

 contradictiiig, the theory mentioned above. 



And then, the lipoid granules growing and enlarging, as they 

 do, from the very small granular bodies described above, change 

 more or less in quality at the same time, and their color becomes 

 somewhat faint, and, moreover, in certain cells, as for instance 

 in a part of the epithelium of the uterine gland and the large- 

 type decidual cells, they sometimes appear as granules hav- 

 ing a very clear yellowish-brown color. At any rate, when they 

 reach a certain degree of development, these lipoid granules 

 create more or less conspicuous halos around themselves, which 

 gives them the appearance of the contents of vacuoles. Such 

 appearances are very commonly noticed in all the cell groups 

 I have examined, and I cannot help recalling to mind the obser- 

 vations made by Babkin, Rubaschkin, and Ssawitsch respect- 

 ing pancreatic cells as cited before. Therefore, I believe that 

 this appearance has a very great significance in the secretion 

 formation, in the same way as the phenomena of secretion of 

 the pancreas as interpreted by these three observers just 

 referred to does. In other words, the lipoids may be compared 

 with the secretory granules of ordinary cells, and they like the 

 latter are slowly liquefied, in accordance with the third one of the 

 various forms of glandular secretion (liquefaction) described 

 above, and pass over to the secretions of a vacuolar shape. There- 

 fore, the vacuoles are, after all, nothing else but a modified 



