THE FEMALE GENITAL TEACT. 833 



their parts of contact. Scattered among the globular elements were oblong, 

 spindle-shaped formations, frequently arranged in clusters. All these bodies 

 were invariably separated from each other, either by very narrow rims or by 

 fields of a slightly granular substance, which fields were about the size of an 

 original medullary corpuscle. Clusters of such medullary corpuscles were 

 irregularly traversed and bounded by slender bundles of fibrous tissue. The 

 medullary corpuscles did not appear uniform. Some were about the size of 

 red blood-disks, and almost without structure ; others were rather larger and 

 indistinctly granular; others again, the largest, showed a distinct granulation 

 and a central nucleus. The relative proportion of these three varieties varied 

 greatly in the different specimens. In one case, the shining, homogeneous 

 bodies were largely in excess. In another, the large, pale, granular bodies 

 were most abundant, and the intervening spaces unusually broad. In a third 

 case, the small, homogeneous bodies were scanty, while the pale, granular 

 corpuscles were numerous, and about six times the size of the homogeneous 

 ones. Their granulations were so coarse as to conceal the nucleus. The cor- 

 puscles exhibited a distinct arrangement in clusters, and between the clusters 

 delicate fibrillse could be traced, thus producing the appearance of myxoma- 

 tous tissue. In a fourth specimen the smallest bodies were few in number ; 

 the large, granular ones surpassed in size the smaller by six or eight diame- 

 ters. In many of these larger bodies the granulations were pale, evidently 

 due to a formation of basis-substance, the nucleus very distinct, and the 

 interstices had the appearance of a fibrous net-work resembling placental 

 structure. The fifth case was so different from the others as to require a more 

 detailed description. 



High powers of the microscope (one thousand diameters) proved that this 

 mass of embryonal corpuscles deserved the name of a tissue from the fact 

 that all the bodies, of whatever size, were united by delicate filaments. No 

 structure was defined in the smallest corpuscles. The larger ones showed 

 vacuoles in their interior, while in the largest a reticulum could be traced 

 whose points of intersection, with low powers, appeared to be granular. The 

 reticulum was most marked in the finely granulated corpuscles with distinct 

 nuclei, and the granulations within the nucleus also had the appearance of 

 being connected in a net-like structure. The reticular formation crossing the 

 plastids became continuous with all their neighbors through the delicate fila- 

 ments traversing the light rims. The granular fields lying around these bod- 

 ies exhibited only a faint reticulum ; but still, this was united with the 

 medullary corpuscles by the points arising from their peripheries. 



Wherever fibrillee were found, either in bundles or as a reticulum inclosing 

 single or grouped corpuscles, these fibers were invariably composed of min- 

 ute, spindle-like formations. These spindles showed a reticular structure, and 

 were also joined to neighboring plastids by fine threads. (See Fig. 376.) 



In the specimens of decidua studied by me, the smallest bodies represent 

 the earliest stages of development of living matter, and from these globules 

 arose the nucleated plastids, which were considerably enlarged from imbi- 

 bition of a liquid. Here the living matter has passed into the reticular stage 

 of development. In a more advanced condition the plastids had been trans- 

 formed into basis-substance which was either fibrous or myxomatous in char- 

 acter, and remained traversed by a reticulum of living matter. The light 

 fields around the medullary elements were made up of a myxomatous basis- 

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