INVOLUTION OF THE UTERUS 87 



for some time remain in the intermuscular connective tissue. 

 On the fifth day, decrease in the volume of the muscle-cells 

 only depends on the emigration of the fat. 



After one and one-half weeks the volume of the muscle 

 fibres had decreased until their average size was that of a 

 normal uterus. 



The above process never leads to destruction of muscular 

 fibres. 



The fat which had formed in the muscular fibres and 

 mucosa and deposited in the inter-muscular connective tissue, 

 is carried from here by the lymph and vascular channels ; even 

 after five weeks some fat is still found. 



The same rotation manifested in the atrophy of the uterine 

 muscle also takes place in the arterial muscularis. The lumen 

 becomes greatly lessened, due to proliferation of the intima, 

 and sometimes becomes obliterated. 



The uterine mucosa after parturition also suffers consider- 

 able changes. The cotyledons become smaller, lose their 

 peduncular identity and undergo regressive fatty metamor- 

 phosis. Fourteen days later cotyledons proper do not exist. 

 After three weeks the mucosa has returned to its original state. 

 Puerperal processes — for instance, septic metritis — do not influ- 

 ence the regressive changes of the cotyledons ; that is, they do 

 not retard them. 



