SECT. 155.] GLANDS OF THE SMALL INTESTINE. 33 1 



the latter, we perceive that the glands do not exist everywhere, 

 but occupy only the interspaces between the villi, though they 

 arc here present in such numbers that they, so to speak, leave no 

 further space remaining; and the surface of the mucous mem- 

 brane between the villi appears perforated and cribriform. Such 

 glands arc found even upon the Peyerian patches and the solitary 

 follicles, but in man they leave the part of the mucous membrane, 

 which lies immediately over the middle of the follicle, free, 

 and are arranged, accordingly, more in the form of rings around 

 the follicles. The length of the Lieberkuhnian glands is equal 

 to the thickness of the mucous membrane, and varies from 4-'" 

 to I'" ; their breadth measures o - o28'" to o'036'"; and their 

 opening o'02'" to o , o3'". They consist of a homogeneous mem- 

 brana propria and a cylindrical epithelium, like that of the in- 

 testine, which, during the formation of chyle, never contains fat, 

 and which, during life, distinctly encloses a cavity filled with 

 a clear fluid secretion, the intestinal juice, as it is termed; but 

 after death, and on the addition of water, it is very readily altered, 

 the glands appearing to be completely filled with cells or with a 

 granular substance. 



The vessels of the Brunnerian glands present quite the same 

 conditions as those of the salivary glands ; whilst those of the 

 Lieberkuhnian tubes accurately conform to the type of those of 

 the stomach (see § 136). 



In the intestinal mucus, one- nucleated, small, round cells are not 

 unfrequently met with, the origin of which is doubtful. In dif- 

 ferent diseases, especially of the intestine, — in inflammation, peri- 

 tonitis, in typhus, — Bohn found in many Lieberkuhnian glands a 

 whitish viscid secretion {Gland, int., p. 34), which, as subsequent 

 observations of the same author {Darmschleimhaut in der 

 Cholera, p. 63) lead us to suppose, was nothing else than the 

 epithelium which had detached itself from the walls, and collected 

 in form of a compact plug. In the cholera, this epithelium, as well as 

 that of the whole intestine, is, according to Bohn, thrown off. 



§ 155. Closed Follicles of the small Intestine. — In the walls of the 

 small intestine, there are met with, singly or in groups, vesicles of 

 a peculiar kind, whose anatomical as well as physiological signifi- 

 cation is still not quite cleared up, and which, accordingly, may, 

 for the present, be most conveniently described under a general 

 name. 



