478 PROFESSOR TURNER ON THE GRAVID UTERUS AND 



in a position to say, neither do I know if a general enlargement of each gland 

 occurs, as I have had no opportunity of comparing them with the glands in the 

 unimpregnated uterus of the same species of whale ; but it is probable that, in 

 the cetacea, as in the other mammals in which they have been seen, the glands 

 undergo a marked increase in size during gestation. 



The uterine mucous membrane was very vascular. Numerous small arteries 

 ran through it, either obliquely or in a slightly tortuous manner, to the super- 

 ficial crypt layer ; immediately beneath which they subdivided into terminal 

 branches, which ended in a close compact capillary network, distributed on the 

 sides and at the bottom of the crypts, and immediately beneath the free surface 

 of those bands of mucous membrane which separated the trenches or pits into 

 which the crypts opened from each other (fig. 10). In the elongated bands 

 which lay between the trench-like recesses, the capillaries formed an elongated 

 network. I frequently saw a terminal artery pass up one side of a crypt and 

 give origin to capillaries which arched in a series of festoons around the walls of 

 the crypts ; in many cases a distinct capillary ring surrounded the somewhat 

 constricted mouth of a crypt (fig. 12, a). The capillaries in the walls of all the 

 crypts belonging to the same group formed a continuous network, which freely 

 anastomosed across the intermediate portions of mucous membrane with the 

 capillaries in the walls of adjacent groups of crypts, so that a continuous 

 capillary plexus was produced, which gave to the free surface of the injected 

 portions of mucous membrane a bright carmine-tinted appearance. In the 

 relative number of the vessels, and the closeness of the network, this plexus 

 may fitly be compared with the capillary plexus of the lungs. 



As the small arteries passed through the gland-layer, they gave off branches 

 which ended in a capillary network situated in the connective tissue between 

 and surrounding the tubular glands. Where the steins of the gland tubes 

 reached the funnel-shaped crypts, there the capillaries of the crypts became 

 continuous with those which surrounded the glands. Owing to the open 

 character of the capillary plexus in relation to the glands, there was a strongly 

 marked difference between the vascularity of the crypt-layer and the gland- 

 layer ; for the vascularity of the latter was not greater than, and may fairly be 

 compared with, the capillary plexus surrounding the tubular glands of the 

 human stomach. The principal vessels of the gland-layer, like the glands them- 

 selves, lay parallel to the general plane of the mucous surface. 



The Foetal Membranes. — The chorion was prolonged from the left into the 

 right horn across the corpus uteri, and extended on each side as far as the 

 opening of the Fallopian tube. The left subdivision, like the corresponding 

 uterine horn, was about twice the size of the right, and contained the embryo. 

 Near the tip of the right horn the chorion was thrown into permanent rugae, 

 which corresponded in direction to the folds of the uterine mucous membrane, 



