76 



GENERAL ANATOMY OF THE MUCOUS TISSUE. 



however, in other respects very variable. Sometimes in per- 

 fectly healthy intestines, they can scarcely if at all be distin- 

 guished ; and when seen, generally appear, if held up between 

 the observer and the light, as little vesicles like those in the rind 

 of an orange, and in which no orifice can be seen even with the 

 glass. In tubercular disease, and especially in typhoid fever 

 with affection of the bowels, (dothinenteritis) they are usually 

 found enlarged, and ulcerated ^o as to expose an abrupt cellular 

 cavity. The structure of these solitary and agminated glands, 

 so different from that of the other follicles of mucous membranes, 

 has lately attracted considerable attention, and the researches 

 of Boehm* and Mullerf have rendered it doubtful, whether 

 they really belong to the class of follicles or not. 



Fig. 143. 



si 



Fig. 143, is part of a patch of Peyer's glands greatly magni- 

 fied, (after Boehm.) Here the follicles of Peyer are seen as 

 circular white spots, about a line in diameter, with no apparent 

 orifice, and surrounded with a circular zone of foramina, which 

 belong, as well as those scattered between the glands, to Lie- 

 berkuhn's follicles. Dr. Boehm tried in vain to express any 

 secretion from the white bodies through an external opening, 

 as he probably could have done, had they been follicles ; nor 

 was he more successful in endeavoring to force it through the 

 orifices forming the zone. On rupturing one of the bodies, a 



* Loc. cit. p. 



f De Glandularum Secernent. Structura penitiora, etc. Leipsic, 1830. P. 



