196 OVARY AND PAROVARIUM, BY W. WALDEYER. 



has applied the term " gland-cords " (" egg-bands," or " chains," 

 Frey). 



Some, and sometimes very many, amongst the imbedded epi- 

 thelial cells become conspicuous by their size and the size of their 

 nuclei, as we have already seen to occur amongst the superficial 

 epithelial cells, and where we may even still meet with them at 

 this stage of development (see fig. 198). Pfliiger (84, p. 113) has 

 briefly noticed in his third provisional communication such very 

 young egg cells in the ovarial epithelium of young cats, and has 

 expressly termed them " evidently ova ; " in his larger work, 

 however, he has not any further followed this point. Other cells 

 remain of small size, surrounding the larger egg cells as a kind 

 of epithelium. It may easily be demonstrated further, by a 

 comparison of younger with older ovaries, that the connective- 

 tissue stroma between the imbedded masses of epithelial cells 

 constantly undergoes increase, and especially grows in between 

 the several egg cells with their epithelial investment. Thus 

 each epithelial ball is divided by these ingrowing vascularized 

 trabeculse into as many cavities as it contains egg cells ; but we 

 occasionally meet at a later period with follicles containing two 

 or more ova in their interior (see fig. 191). I need scarcely 

 observe that the cells thus formed are the youngest or primordial 

 follicles. 



The shape of the cavities, within which the egg cells with their 

 follicular epithelium are imbedded, varies considerably ; rounded and 

 oval forms alternating with long tubular formations (fig. 198), which 

 last obviously become still longer as the interstitial tissue of the 

 stroma augments ; hence, in the human embryo of the 4 7 month 

 we meet principally with spheroidal egg cavities, whilst in the newly 

 born infant, and in children in the first years of life, elongated epithe- 

 lial tubes are most common. The latter, or ovarial tubes are conse- 

 quently secondary formations, which depend probably upon a certain 

 free growth and development of the interstitial connective tissue, and are 

 by no means necessary precursors of the Graafian follicles, as Pfliiger 

 (84), who attributes the greatest importance to them, maintains. 

 This observer has described them as composed of a structureless 

 membrana propria, by the inflections of which the several Graafian 

 follicles are successively divided off. For myself, I have not hitherto 

 been able to demonstrate the presence of such a membrane, and His 



