488 UTERUS, BY DR, R. CHROBAK. 



membrane, and they open on the free surface by orifices having 

 a diameter of from O'l to 0'3 of a millimeter, or by a short 

 broad excretory duct, through which their transparent, colour- 

 less, slimy secretion, which possesses a strong alkaline reaction, 

 and coagulates in alcohol, is discharged. Friedlander states 

 that cup cells are present in this mucus. The statements 

 made by the same author, to the effect that there are two 

 kinds of glands, may be reduced to this, that the extremely 

 small mucous sacs of the cervix in childhood become in 

 the adult, by the growth of the mucous membrane, drawn 

 out into tubules, and are still further elongated by their own 

 growth at puberty. They are composed of a structureless 

 membrane, which is so intimately fused with the connective 

 tissue and the muscular fibres extending to the glands, that it 

 is impossible to isolate it. 



The glands are lined by a nearly cubical epithelium, the 

 nuclei of which are situated nearer the wall than the lumen. 



In the lower half of the cervix the mucous membrane be- 

 tween the gland openings presents delicate slender papillse, 

 O2 of a millimeter in height, covered with a ciliated epithelium, 

 and each containing a vascular loop.* 



Hjalmar Lindgren mentions in addition a thin layer destitute of 

 cells situated immediately beneath the epithelium, which is traversed 

 by processes of the connective-tissue corpuscles. 



The epithelium of the mucous membrane lining the cervix is 

 either throughout its whole extent, or only in its upper two- 

 thirds, an actively moving columnar ciliated epithelium, the 

 cells of which often appear to be filiform at their parietal 

 extremity (Friedlander). Towards the os uteri externum it 

 becomes, after exhibiting all the transitional forms, a simply 

 laminated pavement epithelium. 



In addition to the above-described mucous glands, closed, 

 colourless, and transparent or sherry-coloured vesicles ovula 

 Nabothi are constantly met with, though varying in numbers 

 and distribution, and extending in some instances as far as to 



* Kolliker, Gewebelehre. Hennig, Catarrh der weibliche Geschlechts- 

 organe. Tyler Smith, Med. Chir. Transact., Vol. xxxv. 



