SIR WM. TURNER ON THE PLACENTATTON OF HALIOORE DTJGONG. 643 



connection with the formation of the placenta, and to the characters of this I shall now 

 direct attention. 



The larger part of the mucous membrane lining the gravid horn was smooth on the 

 surface, and with no trace of crypts or depressions visible to the naked eye. The surface 

 was indeed, in a large part of that area which corresponds to the back and sides of the 

 foetus, so smooth as to be almost polished, and with no appearance of succulency, which 

 may perhaps in part be due to the hardening action of the spirit in which the uterus had 

 been preserved. Near the mouth of the left tuba, which opened into the horn under 

 cover of a crescentic fold of mucous membrane by an orifice large enough to admit a 

 small surgical probe, the mucous membrane was thrown into folds, and without crypts, 

 and some transverse folds were seen in the mucous lining placed opposite the belly of the 

 foetus. A broad zone of mucous membrane situated towards the left end of the gravid 

 horn presented very different characters, and constituted the maternal placenta. It was 

 differentiated from the smooth mucous membrane on each side by a sharp, sinuous margin, 

 the left border of which was nearly 8 inches from the opening of the left Fallopian tube, 

 whilst the right border was between 2 and 3 feet from the corpus uteri. The zone was 

 nearly 1 foot in breadth in the anterior convex part of the horn, and about one-half that 

 breadth at its concavity. It was thick and succulent, more especially along the concavity 

 of the cornu, where it was elevated into folds, and it was much more vascular than the 

 smooth area of the mucous membrane on each side of it. It corresponded in form and 

 relative position to a similar zonary band on the chorion. The two zones had indeed 

 been closely adapted to each other, but in the handling and shaking to which the uterus 

 had been subjected in its removal from the animal and its long journey before it reached 

 me, they had become detached. When I opened into the cornu therefore the zone in 

 the uterine wall was readily drawn away from the chorionic zone. 



I then proceeded to examine the mucous membrane of the uterus in the smooth 

 region beyond the margins of the zonary placenta. With a simple lens the free surface 

 was seen to be very faintly wrinkled, and at distant intervals there were faint depressions 

 such as might be made from the pressure of the head of a minute pin. The mucous 

 membrane was easily removed from the muscular coat by tearing through the submucous 

 areolar tissue. When flakes of this membrane were dissected off and placed on a glass 

 slide and soaked in glycerine, they became sufficiently translucent to enable one to see, 

 with the use of low powers of the compound microscope, the arrangement of the tubular 

 glands of the uterus. The mouths of the glands were observed to open at intervals on 

 the surface of the mucous membrane, and the direction of the opening was invariably 

 oblique (fig. 5). From its mouth the gland tube could be traced obliquely through the 

 mucous membrane into the submucous coat. As a rule, the tube was dilated close to 

 the mouth, it then diminished in calibre and became cylindriform, and ran for some 

 distance as a straight unbranching tube. The tube then bifurcated, and became some- 

 what tortuous ; the branches of bifurcation sometimes but not always branched, and 

 each terminal branch ended with a closed rounded end. The distinctness of the gland 



