286 



THE MAMMARY GLANDS, BY C. LANGER. 



may, in many cases and in many parts of the gland, proceed 

 to a much greater extent, since in the gland of this same 

 woman I observed, around a few wide ducts, numerous though 

 short and closely compressed pullulations. Speaking in general 

 terms, small terminal processes, or acini, attached to dilated 

 ducts, indicate foregone pregnancy. So much is certain, that 

 healthy, well-nourished married women preserve the acini of 

 the gland often with the same characters as are presented by 

 young women, except that the hyaline sheaths are absent. 



Complete atrophy of the acini occurs about the period of 

 the grand climacteric; the dense fibrous stroma also dis- 



Fig. 210. 



Fig. 210, From the mammary gland of an old Woman, ninety years 

 of age, showing the extremities of the ducts, partly in cross section ; 

 the stroma with a few capillaries and many elastic fibres. System 8. 



appearing altogether. The whole mass of the gland is 

 shrunken, and forms a membrane-like thin disk, adherent 

 to the nipple, and surrounded by fat on both sides. In the 

 remains of the gland the ducts alone are visible, that some- 

 times still exhibit fine ramifications that may be regarded as 

 intralobular. These ultimate processes of the ducts are of 

 cylindrical form, end blindly, without further appendages, are 

 very thin- walled, are all for the most part collapsed, so that 

 they appear like fissures when divided transversely, and are 

 lined internally by a single layer of flattened epithelium. The 

 contracted ducts are united together by loose fibrous connective 



