45 6 



CORPORA LUTE A AND ALBICANTIA. [SECT. 204. 



of years. — Such stunted yellow bodies (constituting the corpora 



Fig. 186. 



Sections of two corpora lutea of 

 natural size. 1. cpuite recent, eight 

 (lays after conception ; 2. from the 

 fifth month of pregnancy, a. tunica 

 albuginea of the ovary ; 6. stroma 

 of the ovary; c. thickened and plaited 

 fibrous coat of the follicle (inner 

 layer); d. blood-coaguhim ; and p. 

 decolorised blood-coagulum within 

 the preceding; /'. fibrous envelope 

 which limits the corpus luteum. 



albicantia and nigra, of authors) are 

 at first definite in outline, and have a 

 dentated nucleus (which rarely pos- 

 sesses a cavity) of a greyish-white or red- 

 dish colour, sometimes brown or even 

 black from altered heematine. Their 

 cortex presents various shades of yel- 

 low, yellowish -white, or even perfect 

 white, and is frequently distinctly 

 folded. Subsequently, however, the 

 so-called corpora albicantia become 

 transformed into irregular spots, whose 

 borders have coalesced with the stroma 

 of the ovary. Their elements consist 

 of fibres of a more embryonic character, 

 such as form the stroma of the ovary ; 

 next, of various pigment molecules and 

 coloured crystals (luematoidine, myelin 

 of Virchow); and, thirdly, of white 

 and vellow fat, which exists in the 

 cortical substance, at first in large cells^ round, elongated, or 

 fusiform in shape, but ultimately becomes free by the disinte- 

 gration of the cells, and at length undergoes absorption more 

 or less completely. 



In those yellow bodies, which are formed at a period other than 

 during a pregnancy, the processes are essentially the same as in the 

 others, but the several steps follow each other with much greater 

 quickness, so that these bodies, as a rule, disappear completely, or 

 almost completely, in the course of one or two months, and on 

 this account they never possess the pecidiar structure of the bodies 

 formed during pregnancy, which have thus received the name of 

 true corpora lutea. 



The numerous follicles, which are continually disappearing from, 

 the ovaries during the whole prime of life, are replaced, even in 

 the adult, by the continual production of ovi-capsules, which be- 

 come developed into Graafian follicles. In animals, these new 

 formations, that are met with at the period of heat, are very 

 numerous. They were first observed here by Barry, Bischoff, and 

 Steinlin, and are extremely easy of observation. But in women, no 

 opportunity has presented itself of observing their reproduction ; 

 and it is only from the circumstance, that in the normal human 

 ovary also, follicles of the most various sizes are always found, that 



