502 



Mr. C. Creighton on the Suprarenal [Dec. 6, 



The same appearances are produced in the ovary in the following way. 

 The Graafian follicle may be in a more or less advanced stage of ripeness. 

 Either the membrana granulosa may closely invest the ovum, or it may 

 be separated from the ovum (within its cumulus joroligerus) by the cavity 

 for the liquor folliculi. In the former class of cases, the membrana 

 granulosa has a short circuit, in the latter it has a very much longer 

 circumference. "Within a follicle of either class the ovum decays, and 

 the remains of it are expelled or absorbed. The circuit of the membrana 

 granulosa has been broken, and the circular belt of cells is found either 

 to have straightened itself out, if it were of small extent, or to have be- 

 come folded or thrown into sinuosities if it belonged to one of the more 

 distended or riper class of follicles. What remains of the aborted 

 Graafian follicle is the membrana granulosa, in the form of a longer or 

 shorter cylindrical body, straight, or slightly curved, or sinuous, or 

 doubled up. These long, narrow, and variously curved cylinders, as they 

 are found, in their ultimate state of quiescence, in the substance of the 

 ovary, have the most remarkable superficial resemblance to the cortical 

 cylinders of the suprarenal. But the resemblance in minute structure 

 is still more remarkable. While the ovum was shrivelling up or decaying, 

 the round and nuclear cells of the membrana granulosa were taking the 

 shape of long and narrow columnar epithelial cells, stretching from one 

 side of the belt to the other. These cells have their nucleus towards one 

 end, and the cell is seated by that end either upon the outer or concave 

 circumference of the belt, or upon the opposite convex or inner circum- 

 ference, the two sets of cells interlocking with their free ends across the 

 space. Comparing a given length of such ovarian cylinder with a corre- 

 sponding length of cylinder in the suprarenal, the minute points of 

 resemblance are as follows : — Both cylinders are completely filled with 

 cells packed in close order across their long axis ; the cells have precisely 

 the same length and breadth, the same relation of attached ends and free 

 ends, the former uniformly broad and containing the nucleus, and the 

 latter pointed and interlocking with the attached end opposite. As 

 regards cell-substance, and size and shape of nucleus, no differences are 

 discernible. 



The structures from two different organs, that are here brought into 

 comparison, not only resemble one another closely, but they are each 

 of them unlike any thing else in the body. The origin of the structures 

 in the ovary can be traced in the clearest manner ; they are the remains 

 of Graafian follicles within which the ovum has aborted or decayed. 

 The conclusion is that the cortical structures of the suprarenal are the 

 obsolete condition of follicles that, in their active period, resembled the 

 existing Graafian follicles ; and that conclusion is so far in accordance 

 with the hypothesis, based upon independent evidence, that the supra- 

 renal body as a whole (and in its several parts) is an obsolete organ. 



In the suprarenals of other mammals besides the dog and horse, the 



