THE FEMALE GENITAL TRACT. 849 



last months of pregnancy. Morbid, fatty degeneration occurs, according to 

 this writer, in the vera serotina placentae, often also in the villi ; in persons of 

 impaired health, this degeneration accompanies inflammation of the placenta, 

 the vesicular mole, and syphilis; the result being abortion or premature 

 birth. No allusion is made to amyloid degeneration. 



The conclusions drawn from the examination of the ten placentae are : 



First. That the change in the placenta so productive of abortion and, premature 

 birth is a waxy, and not a fatty degeneration, as heretofore believed. 



Second. Among the ten placentae in waxy degeneration, three only, in the 

 highest degree of this morbid change, exhibited signs of fatty degeneration also, 

 and this latter condition was always much less marked than the former. 



Third. The waxy degeneration consists in a peculiar chemical alteration in the 

 myxomatous basis-substance, both in the xoJid and flic rilhmx portions of the 

 placenta. 



Fourth. The degeneration is kindred to that which occurs in the liver, spleen, 

 and kidneys of so-called duscratic or cachectic individuals. The plastids of the 

 decidua and the villosities also enter the waxy degeneration in their fluid portion. 

 The net-work of living matter is not affected by this change, except in its higher 

 degrees, inhere the living matter completely disappears. 



Fifth. Fatty degeneration results from a chemical change of the living matter 

 at the points of interned ion of the net-work the so-called grannies. At first the 

 fat-granules arc joined to the neighboring reticulum by means of fine threads; 

 afterward, tlie fat-granules coalesce and produce fat-globules. 



Sixth. Waxy degeneration of the placenta is sometimes combined with an 

 analogous degeneration of the amnion and the umbilical cord. In the cord it 

 appears in the form of a shining reticulum arising from the degeneration of the 

 fibrous net-work of the mt/xomatouH basis-substance. 



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