172 MESSRS. SCHAFER AND WILLIAMS ON THE [Jan. 18, 



glands of the second region is in most parts composed of delicate 

 connective tissue with numerous corpuscles, supporting the blood- 

 vessels. Here and there well-defined cleft-like spaces are seen in the 

 sections. These, no doubt, represent the lymphatics which are now 

 known to be so numerous in the gastric mucous membrane *. They 

 are particularly large and well marked in the neighbourhood of the 

 pylorus (fig. 5). 



In some places the interglandular tissue contains a considerable 

 number of lymphoid cells ; but this is more particularly the case in 

 the neighbourhood of the lymphoid patches, to the description of 

 which we shall immediately come. Moreover a certain amount of 

 lymphoid tissue may intervene between the bases of the glands and 

 the muscularis mucosae. This last-named layer consists in most 

 parts of two strata of muscular fibre-cells which cross one another, 

 the inner being circular, the outer longitudinal in direction. From 

 the more superficial or inner stratum bundles of fibre-cells pass up 

 here and there between the glands, towards the surface ; but it has 

 not been easy to trace their ultimate destination. Probably they 

 become eventually attached to the basement membrane. 



Structure of Lymphoid Patches. — These localized elevations or 

 thickenings differ from the rest of the mucous membrane of the second 

 region in the fact that both mucosa and submucosa are largely formed 

 by lymphoid tissue, i. e. lymph corpuscles supported by a fine retiform 

 tissue. This (fig. 3) extends in the mucosa towards the surface of 

 the membrane between the glands, and is also found as a distinct 

 stratum at their base. In the submucosa it forms a layer of some 

 thickness immediately underneath the muscularis mucosae. The 

 lymphoid tissue does not form a uniform layer, but is gathered 

 at intervals into well-marked nodules or follicles (fig. 4), which cause 

 the small rounded elevations already noticed on the surface of the 

 lymphoid patch. Each of these elevations is, it will be remembered, 

 marked with a small central pit (d). At the bottom of this the 

 tubular glands fail, and the summit of the follicle is separated 

 from the free surface merely by the layer of columnar epithelium, 

 which itself contains numerous lymph corpuscles between the 

 columnar cells ; and these are also to be noticed free within the 

 depression, as if they had emigrated from the subjacent lymphoid 

 nodule. Indeed it may be doubted whether in some instances the 

 covering of epithelium over the summit of the nodule may not be 

 altogether absent ; some of the sections obtained appear to show 

 this ; but it is possible that it may have become accidentally detached. 

 Below the lymphoid layer of the submucosa is the ordinary connec- 

 tive tissue of that tunic (s. ?h) supporting the larger blood-vessels, 

 nerves, and lymphatics ; and at the base of each follicular accumu- 

 lation there is commonly (as shown in fig. 3) a large lymphatic sinus, 

 into which the follicle partly dips. At other places the lymphoid 

 tissue of the mucosa is separated from that of the submucosa by the 

 layer of muscularis mucosae (fig. 3, m. )n) ; but the latter is wanting 

 opposite the summit of each follicle (fig. 4), and the lymphoid tissue 

 * Lov6n, Nord. Med. Arkiv, 1873. 



