484 UTERUS, BY DR. R. CHROBAK. 



In sections of uteri which had been macerated in Muller's 

 fluid, or in a four per cent, solution of bichromate of potash, 

 and then in alcohol, he was unable to recognize the presence of 

 cilia, and he was not more successful with those that had been 

 preserved in alcohol, in two per cent, solutions of chromic acid, 

 in a O'OOl per cent, of chloride of palladium, or in a cold satu- 

 rated solution of bichromate of potash. In such preparations 

 he however always observed regularly closely arranged bud- 

 like elevations on the inner margin of the epithelium, which 

 gave a kind of striated appearance to it.* 



Nevertheless it is in hardened specimens that the form and 

 disposition of these epithelial cells may best be studied, 

 especially in very thin sections of preparations that have been 

 hardened in Muller's fluid, and stained with carmine. In such 

 specimens we can also examine in a very circumscribed space 

 all conceivable real and optical sectional planes of the glands, 

 and this whether longitudinal or transverse sections are made 

 through the membrane. 



The cells are wedge-shaped, with hexangular cross section, 

 the broad surface looking outwards, and the acute angle towards 

 the lumen of the tube in such a manner that the edge cor- 

 responds to the axis of the tube. 



In transverse sections of the gland, each cell has the form of 

 an isosceles triangle, with a truncated apex directed inwards. 

 The cells, differing in number with the size of the tube, which 

 varies to a considerable extent, and with the species of the 

 animal, form a ring surrounding the lumen. The narrower 

 the lumen, and the fewer cells form the ring, by so much the 

 more closely does their form approximate that of a triangle ; 

 that is to say, so much the smaller is the inner border, and so 

 much the more rapidly do these borders converge internally. 



* In the sixth volume of S. Th. v. Soemmering's treatise " On the 

 Structure of the Human Body," edited by Henle, in 1841, at p. 246, Henle 

 says of the cilia, that ' ' after death they appear in the form, of small spheroidal 

 bodies, and then vanish entirely" See also Friedrich on the significance of 

 the striation, in his essay " On the Structure of Columnar and Ciliated 

 Epithelium " in the Archiv fur pathol. Anatomie und Physiologie, Band 

 xv., p. 535. 



