646 SIR WM. TURNER ON THE PLACENTATION OF HALICORE DUGONG. 



lead one to call them columnar ; the majority were, however, irregular in shape, and with 

 angular outlines, so that they may appropriately be called polygonal cells. The cells were 

 nucleated, and as a rule the protoplasm was granular ; they were stained a pinkish tint 

 with picro-carmine. It was obvious, therefore, that the crypts possessed a distinct 

 epithelial lining. Occasionally I obtained in a section a view of one of the larger crypts, 

 to which I have referred in my description of the surface of the maternal placenta. It 

 was seen to pass very obliquely and considerably deeper into the mucosa than was the 

 case with the smaller crypts, for not only was it wider than they, but it was also three or 

 four times longer, and extended obliquely and subjacent to the more superficial crypt- 

 layer. In some sections the largely dilated bulbous end of one of the longer villi was 

 seen to occupy the interior of a deeper crypt (fig. 11). These deeper crypts also 

 possessed small secondary crypts branching off from them, and both were lined by an 

 epithelium similar to that found in the shorter crypts already described. It is possible 

 that these deeper crypts were the dilated mouths of the uterine glands opening on the 

 free surface of the maternal placenta, but it was difficult to trace a gland- tube opening 

 directly into any one of them, though in one section (fig. 12) the gland came close up 

 to the deep crypt, and seemed as if it might have opened into it. If such were their 

 nature, then a few of the chorionic villi, somewhat larger in size than the rest, occupied 

 with their free ends the dilated mouths of the gland-tubes. The great bulk of the villi 

 had been, however, lodged in the thousands of smaller crypts already referred to, which 

 were not the mouths of glands, and indeed were quite independent of them, for they were 

 situated in the interglandular portions of the mucous membrane, delicate bands of which 

 formed their walls. 



Subjacent to the crypt-layer of the mucous membrane of the placental area was the 

 glandular-layer, and in it short segments of the gland-tubes could be seen at irregular 

 intervals and at different depths (fig. 11). As in the corresponding sections through the 

 non-placental area of the mucous membrane, the tubes were divided either longitudinally, 

 obliquely, or transversely. The glands were lined by a cubical epithelium, which was 

 either attached to the wall or was lying loose in the lumen. In some sections the gland- 

 tubes were seen approaching and indeed lying immediately subjacent to the crypt-layer, 

 and in the section above referred to a gland appeared as if it might have opened into 

 one of the deeper crypts (fig. 12). 



The connective tissue in the gland-layer contained a large number of corpuscles, 

 partly leucocytes and partly those belonging to the connective tissue itself, similar to 

 those I have already described in the non-placental part of the mucous membrane. 



An attempt was made to inject the finer vessels of the uterine mucous membrane 

 through the uterine veins and arteries, but without success. Although the injection 

 passed into the larger trunks, it did not penetrate the smaller arteries and veins, or the 

 capillaries, which was doubtless due to the constringing action of the spirit in which the 

 uterus had so long been immersed. There can, however, be no question that capillaries 

 had ramified freely in the walls of the crypts, and had formed networks similar to those 



