372 DR FOULIS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OVA, ETC. 
nuclei appear as round or oval bodies with nucleoli. An examination of the 
patches shows that the granular cells are swollen up individuals of the membrana 
granulosa from old and probably ruptured follicles, and are undergoing a fatty 
degeneration, while at the same time connective tissue corpuscles from the wall 
of the follicle are growing in between them. In almost every old ovary we find 
large yellow patches, consisting of the cells we have now described. 
At birth the stroma of the human ovary is well developed in every part, 
and is arranged in a perfect network throughout the whole organ. The 
ovary might be compared to a piece of sponge in whose meshes ova are con- 
tained. The ova in the human ovary at birth are very numerous. They may be 
fairly estimated at about 35,000 in each organ. In favourable specimens ‘a 
section of such an ovary presents under the microscope a splendid object. In 
it the stroma appears to be actually saturated with young ova (fig. 23, m), in 
all of which we can recognise the germinal vesicle as a distinct spherical body, 
and sometimes two or more germinal spots are seen in it, and around each 
germinal vesicle is the yelk substance fillmg up the entire cavity of the 
Graafian follicle. In all parts of the stroma the minute connective tissue 
corpuscles crowd together, and in the deeper parts of the ovary, where the 
oldest Graafian follicles are situated, the connective tissue corpuscles in the 
walls of the follicles may be seen in contact with and imdenting the yelk 
substance of the included young ova, and in these cases the development of the 
corpuscles of the membrana granulosa may be clearly followed out. In such 
a section, under the germ epithelium, the last formed egg clusters have not as 
yet been completely subdivided by the connective tissue stroma into the 
ultimate egg containing meshes or Graafian follicles, but this is rapidly — 
approaching completion. : 
After birth, the inclusion of germ epithelial corpuscles by the ovarian 
stroma becomes less and less, until at the age of about two years the process 
has entirely ceased; for at this period of development the tunica albuginea has 
assumed a special character as a complete investment to the whole ovary under 
the germ epithelium. Most superficially its fibres are arranged in a stratified 
manner, and run horizontally round the organ; and in sections the general 
stroma of the ovary is seen in connection with the tunica albuginea in all 
parts. 
From the earliest appearance of the ovary we have on the one hand a 
growth of germ epithelial corpuscles, and on the other a growth of vascular 
connective tissue. The germ epithelial corpuscles, in groups or clusters, become 
gradually surrounded by the vascular connective tissue, and, as development 
proceeds, the connective tissue grows into the groups between the corpuscles, 
and these become at last separated from each other, and by the thickening of 
the tissue in, between, and around them, they are ultimately included in separate 

