530 
PROFESSOR W. TURNER ON THE PLACENTATION OF THE APES. 
of the more superficial part of the mucous membrane along with it. If very great 
care was taken, the chorion could be separated from the mucous surface, which was 
then seen to present a ridge and furrowed appearance arranged much more irregularly 
than in the lower third of the uterus. The corresponding surface of the non-placental 
part of the chorion possessed multitudes of fine ridges which fitted into the furrows of 
the mucosa so closely as to make it difficult to strip ofi* the chorion without removing 
a part of the mucous surface along with it. The close co-aptation of the chorion to 
the mucous membrane, even in the non-placental regions, was well seen in vertical 
sections through the wall of the uterus and foetal membranes, in which the chorion 
followed the windings of the mucous surface and in close contact with its epithelial 
covering (fig. 2). 
The uterine mucosa was covered by an epithelium which varied in character in 
different parts of the uterus. In the lower third or fourth of the cavity the cells had 
the characters of columnar epithelium. Their attached ends were either attenuated 
into a fine process, or truncated or occasionally bifurcated ; at their free ends delicate 
processes, not unlike short cilia, were seen ; but as this observation was made some 
time after death no movement was visible. The nuclei were nearer the attached than 
the free ends of the cells. A small proportion of these epithelial cells were swollen 
out, so as to have more the appearance of goblet epithelium. In the region of the 
fundus, and in the interval between the placental lobes, the epithelium was neither 
columnar nor ciliated. The cells were polygonal in form, and fitted together like the 
tiles of a pavement, but they w T ere not such thin scales as one sees in the tessellated 
epithelium of the mouth. The nucleus was large, rounded or ovoid in form, and con- 
tained one or more nucleoli. In their general appearance these cells had a resem- 
blance to the colossal cells of the human decidua. 
The sub-epithelial tissue of the mucous membrane contained a considerable pro- 
portion of fusiform corpuscles closely crowded together, which were larger than the 
corpuscles of the sub-epithelial tissue in a specimen of the non-gravid uterus of a 
Macacus, with which they were compared. These corpuscles were not unfrequently 
elongated at their poles into slender filaments, though at other times the poles were 
short and stunted. Other cells were not fusiform, but polygonal, or even irregularly 
stellate. The protoplasm of the cells was dimly granulated, and the nuclei relatively 
large and elliptical in shape. Occasionally thin flakes of nucleated protoplasm were 
seen, in which the differentiation into definite cells could not be recognised. The 
abundance and variety in form of the cells in the sub-epithelial tissue gave one the 
impression of a texture in which a rapid cell growth had taken place. Bundles of 
white fibrous connective tissue were sparingly distributed in the sub-epithelial tissue, 
though a filamentous appearance, due to the filamentous poles of so many of the 
fusiform cells, was not uncommon. Parallel and next to the deep surface of the 
sub-epithelial tissue was a band, more or less distinct in different sections, which could 
sometimes be peeled off in a long stripe. This band contained spindle-shaped cells of 
