STUUCTUKK OF HUMAN PLACENIW, 453 



papillcu, and have represented the capillary loops in a manner 

 much too formal. I liave examined a uterus whicli was in a 

 state described Ity Dr. Sharpey. There was a well-formed 

 corpus luteum in one of tlie ovaries ; tlie decidua had appeared 

 ou its internal surface, and presented in the most distinct and 

 beautiful manner the orifices of the follicles, and the vascu- 

 hirity of the interfollicular spaces. The follicles, bounded by 

 their f^erminal membrane, were turgid witli their epithelial 

 contents. The interfollicular spaces in which the capillaries 

 formed a net- work with polygonal or rounded meshes, was 

 occupied by a texture which consisted entirely of nucleated 

 liarticles. This is the tissue represented by Von Baer and 

 Wagner, described by them as surrounding what they supposed 

 to be uterine papilkr, and considered by them as decidua. The 

 free surface of the uterine mucous membrane was covered by 

 a membrane which appeared to me to be continuous with the 

 germinal membrane of the follicles. 



Dr. Sharpey lias not described this interfollicular sub- 

 stance, as liis attention appears to have been cliielly directed 

 to the follicles. As, however, it is to this interfollicular sul>- 

 stance, as much as to the enlargement of the follicles them- 

 selves, that the mucous membrane owes its increased thickness, 

 it appears to me worthy of being recorded. 



A uterus in the condition which has just been described, 

 is said to be lined with the decidua, consisting, as has been 

 stated, of an interfollicular cellular .substance, and of an ex- 

 tended net- work of caiiillary bloodvessels. 



About the time at which the ovum reaches the utenis, the 

 developed mucous nuaiibrane or decidua licgins to secrete, 

 the OS uteri becomes plugged up by this .secretion, where it 

 assumes the fonn of elongated epithelial cells ; the cavity of 

 the ut<3rus becomes filled with a tluid secretion, the "hydro- 

 perione" of Breschet, and in the immediate neiglibourhood of 

 the ovum, the secretion consists of cells of a spherical form. 



