PLASMA CELLS OF HOFBAUER 333 
bauer regarded the vacuoles as having an assimilative and di- 
gestive function. A reference to the plates accompanying 
Hofbauer’s monograph, however, shows that vacuolation was 
not always present, and that the largest of the cells were almost 
twice the size of the smallest. ‘ 
In his earlier paper Hofbauer (’03) also said that his prepa- 
rations taken from material from the fourth to the ninth weex 
of pregnancy, and obtained at operation, showed these cells 
in all stages of mitotic division. Hofbauer further wondered 
whether the spaces surrounding these cells are lumina of capil- 
laries, added that the cells discovered by him undoubtedly are 
found in capillaries, and made some rather unguarded surmises 
concerning them. — 
Berlin (’07), in writing on the changes in retained placentae, 
also spoke of large swollen, hydropic cells which lie in spaces. 
These cells she regarded as undoubted mesenchyme cells. How- 
ever, Berlin did not believe that they are degeneration products, 
although her description certainly would lead one to suppose 
that they were such. Even when she states that they bear no 
sign of degeneration, emphasizing that the chromatin network 
is fine, she speaks of swollen nuclei which have gathered a larger 
amount of protoplasm about them, phenomena which she re- 
garded as signs of luxurious nutrition. Moreover, Berlin never 
observed mitoses and never found the nuclei increased in villi 
containing many of these cells, an observation wholly in har- 
mony with that of others and directly opposed to proliferation. 
Grosser (710), who was plainly aware of the fact that Hofbauer 
was not the discoverer of these cells, also represented a cell 
which, however, is non-vacuolated and binucleated, and added 
that their significance is still unknown. 
I have given Hofbauer’s description, partly to emphasize 
the vacuolation, for it was this which also impressed Minto, 
(04), who rightfully stated: 
We frequently find in the literature mention of wandering cells 
with vacuolated protoplasm, but they seem not to have been recog- 
nized as degenerating cells. . . . . The disintegration by vacu- 
olation has, so far as known to me, not been described heretofore, and 
