478 UTERUS, BY DR. R. CHROBAK. 



terminates at the upper end of the isthmus by a sharply defined 

 border * In the virgin it presents the appearance of a grey or 

 pale pink membrane having a thickness of from 1 to 1*8 milli- 

 meters, but becoming thinner towards the cervix and the orifices 

 of the Fallopian tubes. f Its separation from the subjacent mus- 

 cular coat is not very distinctly marked, and it cannot in conse- 

 quence be dissected off in large flakes. Its surface is smooth, 

 except near the orifices of the tubse, where it exhibits very small 

 folds (small papillse, Hennig)4 In health it is covered with a 

 thin layer of a more or less grey, transparent, and rather gluti- 

 nous fluid, possessing a feebly alkaline reaction, and containing 

 in variable, but small proportions, columnar cells, spheroidal 

 granule cells, secretion of the uterine glands, a few cilia, and 

 very rarely perfect ciliated cells ; in older persons, cholesterin, 

 monads, algae, free fat, etc., may be found. (Donne, Taylor, 

 Smith, Scanzoni and Kolliker, Hennig, Schlossberger, Haus- 

 mann, and many others.) 



The mucous membrane does not possess any definite connec- 

 tive-tissue framework. (Henle states that he has here and 

 there, by pencilling out the tissue, discovered a fine plexus of 

 pale fibres. He noticed this also in specimens treated with 

 alkaline solution). It consists of the tubular glands of 

 the uterus, which we shall immediately proceed to describe, 

 between which are large numbers of apparently free nuclei, 

 having a diameter of 0006 to O'OOS of a millimeter, of 

 elongated or variously formed polyhedric flattened cells, of fibre 

 cells in every stage of development, of a relatively large 

 quantity of intermediate substance, and of muscular fasciculi 

 running up to the base of the glands from the innermost layers 

 of the muscularis. 



The glandulce utriculares, first pointed out by Malpighi,|| 



* Virchow, in Froriep's and Schleiden's Notizen ueber die Bildung der 

 .Decidua, (On the formation of the decidua.) 



t Robin, Memoire pour servir a VHistoire anatomique de la Membrane 

 muqueuse de V Uterus, Archives general, Juillet, 1847. 



I Hennig, Der Katarrh, etc. 



Henle, loc. cit. 



|| Malpighi, Opp. 1687, vol. ii., p. 220. 



