494 PROFESSOR TURNER ON THE GRAVID UTERUS AND 



have been more especially examined, viz., the rat, rabbit, hare, and guinea pig, 

 there is a general agreement among observers that proper utricular glands in 

 the form of elongated tubes do not exist, but the mucous membrane is thrown 

 into complex foldings, which possess an appearance long since compared by 

 Reichert to the convolutions of the brain. 4 ' Leydig indeed is disposed to 

 regard the spaces between the folds, with their epithelial lining, as equivalent 

 to colossal glands, although they want the tubular form. 



In the Human Subject, where the placenta possesses its most concentrated 

 character, utricular glands are present in the uterine mucous membrane. As is 

 well-known, however, these glands are difficult to demonstrate in the quiescent 

 uterus, and only acquire well-marked characters after conception has taken 

 place or during menstruation. They form important constituents of the decidua 

 vera or uterina on the free surface of which their mouths may readily be seen. 

 As the ovum enters the uterus it becomes enclosed within a chamber formed 

 of the decidua ovuli, the inner surface of which chamber is pitted with shallow 

 depressions, which receive the chorionic villi, but there is no satisfactory evidence 

 to show that these pits in the decidua ovuli are the dilated mouths of the uterine 

 glands. 



In the area of the decidua serotina where the placenta is developed, various 

 observers have shown that a great production of globular and spindle-like cells 

 takes place, which are intimately intermingled with the chorionic villi. Carl 

 Friedlander has recently pointed out that both the decidua vera and serotina 

 may be divided into two principal layers, an inner cell-layer intermingled with 

 the chorionic villi, and an outer glandular, which latter lies next the muscular 

 coat. The cells of the inner layer are elongated or rounded colossal cells, 

 frequently with many nuclei, and correspond in appearance to those cells 

 which histologists now term giant cells {Riesenzellen). Beautiful representations 

 of these cells have been given by Ercolani in Plate X. of his memoir. The 

 glandular layer contains, amidst its corpusculated connective tissue, hollow 

 spaces clothed with an epithelium, the cells of which are partly flattened, partly 

 cylindrical. These spaces FreidlAnder regards as the modified utricular 

 glands ; but he considers that we still need satisfactory proof of the penetration 

 of the villi into these glands. 



As yet only one anatomist has recorded, in a sufficiently precise form, distinct 

 observations which seem to show that some at least of the villi of the human 

 chorion enter the utricular glands in the placental area. Jassinsky describest 

 thick villi (dicke Zotten) in the placental region, which differ from the ordinary 

 chorionic villi in having very few or even no lateral branches, and in possessing 

 knob-like dilatations at their free ends. In each thick villus, he says, two 

 structureless membranes and two epithelial layers may be recognised, the inner 



* Miiller's Archiv, 1848, p. 79. \ Op. cit. p. 346. 



