539 
of Edinburgh, Session 1874-75. 
tissue, which formed the proper wall of the pits. The mucous 
membrane investing the cotyledon was continuous at the mouth of 
the cup with the walls of the pits in the spongy tissue, so that 
the cells lining the pits were in the same morphological plane 
as the epithelium covering the mucosa. The cotyledons were 
highly vascular. Some of the arteries in the sub-cotyledonary 
connective tissue were corkscrew-like ; and in the deeper part 
of the cotyledon itself I have seen tortuous vessels. The 
greater number of the vessels within the cotyledon passed, 
however, vertically towards the surface lying in the connective 
tissue walls of the pits ; branching repeatedly, as a rule in a dicho- 
tomous manner, prior to forming a compact maternal capillary 
plexus, — not dilating into maternal blood sinuses. 
The mucous membrane of the uterus between the cotyledons 
contained numerous tortuous, branched tubular glands. Some of 
these extended almost vertically to the surface, and could be seen 
in almost their entire length in vertical sections — others ran more 
obliquely, and owing to their tortuosity, were repeatedly divided 
in vertical sections. The mouths of the glands could readily be 
seen with a pocket lens opening on the surface, the orifice being 
partially surrounded by a minute elevation of the mucosa. In the 
mucosa around the base of the cotyledons, a ring-like series of 
gland openings were seen. In the mucosa covering the coty- 
ledons glands were also present, but their orifices were much 
stretched, as if by the pressure due to the great growth of the sub- 
jacent spongy tissue of the cotyledon. The sub-epithelial connec- 
tive tissue in which the glands lay, was not by any means so vascu- 
lar as that which formed the walls of the pits within the cotyledons. 
In some sections through the cotyledons and adjacent mucosa no 
glands were to be seen in the connective tissue intervening between 
the cotyledon and muscular wall, but they were collected in consider- 
able numbers around the cotyledon, as if pushed outwards by its 
rapid growth. In other sections, however, tubular glands were seen 
in the sub-cotyledonary connective tissue ; but they seemed to be 
the deep ends of the branching glands, the stems of which may 
have inclined obliquely, so as to open on the surface of the mucous 
membrane covering the cotyledon. None of these subjacent glands, 
or those situated on the surface of the cotyledon, were seen to open 
4 a 
VOL. VIII, 
