627 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
THE MUCOUS AND' PEPTIC GLANDS OE THE STOMACH. 
It has been customary to recognise a distinction between 
the ordinary follicular glands of the stomach and those more 
complex glands which lie in the vicinity of the pyloric orifice, 
and which are called peptic glands. In a paper, however, 
read before the Silesian Scientific Society on the 13th of 
May, Dr. Elstein has formed an opposite conclusion. His 
observations were made on the cat, pig, dog, and rabbit. 
The so-called mucous glands of the stomach are chiefly found 
in the pyloric region, except a zone having a breadth of about 
one third or one half of an inch, which is chiefly occupied 
with peptic glands. The alveoli of the stomach are lined 
with columnar epithelium, the cells of which, at first closed, 
subsequently burst, discharging their contents, and becoming 
replaced by others which were previously subjacent. The 
cells lining the mucous glands are short, contain a granular 
protoplasm, with a nucleus at the lower end. The entire 
series of physical and chemical characters of these cells show 
that they belong to the typical cells ( hauptzellen ) of Heiden- 
hain. Four or five hours after a meal the mucous glands 
appear cloudy and shrunken, whilst they absorb colouring 
matters, as aniline blue, with remarkable facility. The mu- 
cous glands secrete a fluid which possesses digestive powers, 
converting albumen into peptone. 
ZOOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL IMPORT OE THE SIZE 
OE THE RED CORPUSCLES OE THE BLOOD. 
In a memoir on this subject by Professor Gulliver in the 
part just published of the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological 
Society/ some noteworthy observations occur. His disco- 
veries show that the largest red corpuscles of the blood yet 
known in several genera of one order of Mammalia are found 
in the order Edentata, and the smallest in the order Rumi- 
nantia. He gives figures of them in Orycteropus (the Aard- 
vark of South Africa), in the Napu Musk Deer ( Tragulus ), 
and in the true Musk Deer [Moschus moschiferus ) . Thus the 
orders in question can be at once distinguished simply by 
the size of the red blood-corpuscles. And, still further. 
