54 THE CORPUS LUTEUM. 



The further progress in the formation of the corpus luteum consists in the 

 continued growth, or as it were vegetation, of the internal strata of the 

 theca towards the cavity of the follicle ; this growth of the theca being 

 dependent on the continued increase in size of its component cells, and the 

 development of new cells of the same kind. 



In the fully formed corpus luteum the nucleated fibres resulting imme- 

 diately from the transformation of the smaller cells are disposed in fasci- 

 culi which traverse the mass, and form, as it were, a frame-work, apparently 

 destined to support the nutrient vessels. The large cells and fibre-cells 

 distinguished by the fat granules they contain, seem to have no regular 

 arrangement.* 



Respecting the mode of development of the human corpus luteum 

 very various opinions have been held ; some writers, as Dr. Montgomery, 

 Dr. Paterson, Dr. Ritchie, and Dr. Frank Renaud,f maintaining that the 

 yellow substance is deposited between the two tunics of the Graafian 

 follicle ; others, as Dr. Lee, asserting that the growth of the yellow sub- 

 stance takes place external to both tunics : while most of the German 

 and French writers assume, and M. Raciborski { states, from direct obser- 

 vation, that as in the mammalia, so in the human subject, it is the inner 

 surface of the tunic that produces the yellow body. That the last view is 

 the correct one the writer is satisfied, from the results of the examination 

 of many human corpora lutea in various stages of their growth. For in 

 several which were in an early stage, no membrane whatever could be 

 demonstrated on the interior of the layer of yellow substance, and a par- 

 ticle taken from its inner surface was found on microscopic examination to 

 consist of the elements already described as forming the corpora lutea in 

 domestic quadrupeds. Where a membrane did exist on the interior of 

 the yellow substance it was found to be composed of elements very dif- 

 ferent from those which constitute the inner strata of the tunic of the 

 Graafian follicle, it was composed not of granular nucleated cells, nor of 

 fibro-cells, but of the delicate non-nucleated fibres into which the fibrin of 

 the blood or liquor sanguinis is transformed subsequent to its coagulation. 



The microscopic elements of the fully formed corpora lutea are essen- 

 tially the same in the human subject as in the domestic animals.^ 



* The corpus luteum of the sow and cow, is, according to Zwicky , never entirely re-absorbed. 

 But, by the rupture of some of the larger cells, the transformation of others into fibro- 

 cells, and the subsequent absorption of the greater part of these fibro-cells, it is at length 

 reduced to a small mass, consisting of imperfectly-formed fibres of cellular tissue, mixed 

 with dark yellow fat, the quantity of which is proportionally much greater in corpora 

 lutea which are undergoing diminution in size, than in those which are still at the maximum 

 of their development. 



t Cormack's Monthly Journal of Medical Science, vol. v. 1845, p. 600. 



J Bulletin de 1'Acad. Roy. de Medecine, 15 Oct. 1844. 



This statement is founded on the writer's own observations, as well as on the descriptions 

 of Raciborski and Renaud. 



