STRUCTURE OF THE MAMMALIAN GASTRIC GLANDS. 379 



in itself would suggest a similarity in the nature of the 

 secretion products of the cells^ as well as a similarity in their 

 mode of origin. There are, however, additional reasons for 

 regarding the secretion of the neck cells as of a mucous 

 nature. Staining in thionin gives a faint metachromatic red 

 stain to the secretion inside the cell, and in Mayer's muchse- 

 matein the secretion of these cells stains even more intensely 

 than that of the surface epithelium. I may add that in the 

 latter fluid the chief cells of the body of the gland stain not 

 at all. 



The nuclei of these cells vary in shape with the amount of 

 secretion present. In those cells which have a well-defined 

 outer protoplasmic zone it is round or oval, and of regular 

 contour. In the cells that are filled with secretion the nucleus 

 presents the irregular, compressed, sometimes crescentic out- 

 line usually observed in mucus-secreting cells. 



Mitotic divisions are, as Bizzozero ^ pointed out^ most abun- 

 dant in the cells of the bottom of the duct and of the upper 

 portion of the gland neck, but they are by no means infre- 

 quent in the chief cells of the gland neck themselves, and 

 I have frequently observed cells completely filled up with 

 secretion with their nuclei in the various phases of indirect 

 division. 



The nature of the difference between the mucus secreted by 

 the cells of the gland neck and of the surface epithelium is a 

 point of some interest, but one which it is very difficult to 

 determine. The fact that the cells in which mitoses are most 

 frequent contain secretion which stains with indulin, and that 

 the cells of the gland neck containing a similar secretion also 

 divide frequently, while the cells of the surface rarely undergo 

 division, would suggest that the difference is partly of the 

 nature which Bizzozero ~ has found to exist between the 

 secretions of the young and old mucus-secreting cells of the 

 Lieberkuhnian glands of the intestine. Tliis is not^ however, 

 a sufficient explanation, as similar differences in staining re- 



1 'Arch. f. mik. Auat./ Bd. xlii. 



2 Ibid., Bd. xl. 



