GLANDS OF THE ORAL CAVITY. 4G3 



titles of a grayish, yellowish, or greenish, sometimes softer, sometimes 

 more consistent mucus, if it may be so called, the constituents of these 

 contents being larger and smaller cells, with a single nucleus, some of 

 which have undergone a very obvious fatty metamorphosis, while others 

 have cavities and thickened membranes ; further, epithelium (not ciliated 

 cylinders, as Valentin states, having probably confounded with such, the 

 deepest, here very much elongated, cells of the pavement epithelium), 

 occasionally abundant cholesterin crystals and mucedinous fungi. The 

 secretion is more normal if it consist only of epithelium, of small cells 

 without fat and of free nuclei, the two latter elements being perfectly 

 similar to those in the follicles; such great masses of them, however, 

 are often found, that we must suppose they have been developed in 

 excess. 



In any case I am disposed to consider such cells and nuclei as the 

 proper secretion of the tonsils, inasmuch as, in animals, as for example, 

 the Sheep, we find similar contents, though their amount is often small. 

 It is difficult to decide whether they are afforded by the follicles or not ; 

 certain it is, that they are identical with the contents of the latter, and 

 that in man the follicles burst, but the former might be accidental, and 

 the latter only a morbid process. 



In fact, however frequently the tonsils of animals are examined, no 

 ruptured follicles are ever met with ; they are always entirely closed, 

 and the epithelium extends them, so that one is led to the belief that the 

 secretion is developed independently, out of a substance excreted into 

 the cavity of the organ. That this is possible and actually takes place, 

 indeed, elsewhere (e. g. suppuration upon mucous membranes which are 

 still covered by their epithelium), is not to be denied ; and the sole 

 difficulty about such a hypothesis is, that in this case the import of the 

 tonsillar and lingual follicular glands (for which, also, all that has been 

 said, holds good), becomes highly problematical. If they do not occa- 

 sionally burst, their function, as regards secretion, can only be to elabo- 

 rate in their interior a fluid, which when it subsequently enters the 

 cavity of the gland, is especially fitted to form its proper secretion. 

 For the rest, the similarity of the follicles in question, especially with 

 those of the solitary and Peyerian glands, and also with those of the 

 spleen* and lymphatic glands, would indicate another series of possi- 

 bilities, into which, however, I will not enter, because in all the organs 

 in question the anatomical facts and the physiological relations have 

 hitherto been by no means completely determined. 



III. SALIVARY GLANDS. 



136. The salivary glands, i. e. the parotid, the submaxillary, the 

 sublingual, snidHivini's glands, agree so closely in their structure with 



* [For some additional facts in favor of these resemblances, see notes Spleen. TRS.] 



