PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY AND HISTOLOGY 



the gland, which, upon contracting, flattens the hypophysis and causes a 

 deepening of the pit normally present upon its upper surface 



Schoenemann found fewer strictly normal hypophyses with advancing 



age, as shown in the following table : 



Age 



Newborn 

 1 to 20. 

 20 " 40. 

 40 60. 

 Over 60 



Totals 



27 



Total 

 11 

 14 

 28 

 39 

 19 



111 



The chromophile cells, which predominate in middle life, become fewer 

 m number in old age (Erdheim(a)). Fat droplets begin to make their 

 appearance m the cells of the anterior lobe in early infancy. These 

 droplets increase in number and size with advancing age, so that in old 

 age they may be as large as the nuclei themselves (Erdheim(a)). They 

 appear to be largest and 

 most numerous in the 

 basophil cells. Kraus(a) 

 found an increase in the 

 size and number of the 

 droplets of isotropic 

 lipoidal substances in 

 the cells of the anterior 

 lobe in old age. He 

 considered these not as 

 secretion products, but 

 as an expression of de- 

 pressed cell function. 



There appears to be 

 a tendency with advanc- 

 ing age for the cells of 

 the anterior lobe to 

 grow backward into the 

 posterior lobe. Erd- 

 heim(a) observed it in 

 three individuals, 50, 

 53 and 73 years old, re- 

 spectively. This con- 

 dition is illustrated in Fig. 1, which is a photomicrograph of a section 

 of the hypophysis of a colored man about 60 years old. Tolken observed 

 this process in 50 out of 105 hypophyses examined. 



Circumscribed adenomatous growths within the anterior lobe are 

 common after the age of 40, as observed by Lowenstein, Kraus(fe), and 



Fig. 1. Growth of cells of the pars intermedia into 

 the pars posterior of the hypophysis. Magnified 70 

 times. A small part of the anterior lobe is shown in the 

 lower right hand segment. 



