G76 
MR. J. N. LANGLEY ON THE HISTOLOGY AND 
In the oxyntic glands, however, as in the oesophageal, the times and extent of the 
changes vary enormously with the amount of food given and the general condition of 
the Frog. 
If a Frog is fed with several worms so that the stomach is much distended with 
digestible food, the changes are greater and persist for a much longer time. The 
diminution in the size of the gland-cells makes itself obvious in a diminution in the 
length of the glands. In twenty-four hours the glands instead of having returned to 
the hungry state are still small and consist of somewhat small cells with a more or less 
distinct inner non-granular border; the lumina are frequently large. These points 
will be seen in Plate 77, fig. 11, taken from a Frog twenty-four hours after feeding 
with four worms. In such specimens we are better able to observe the increase in 
size of the lumen. Generally speaking, as the cells become smaller the lumen becomes 
larger, but we have to reckon not only with the size of the cells but with the pressure 
of the surrounding tissue. It is probably due to local variation in this respect that 
the glands in different regions of the same stomach have lumina of very different size. 
Usually the lumina are most conspicuous at the base of the glands. 
In Frogs to which an excess of food has been given, the non-granular inner zone is 
usually most obvious about the eighteenth or twentieth hour after feeding. The cells 
then have increased and are still increasing in size ; the greater clearness with which 
the non-granular zone can be seen is then probably due to the nett increase in the 
cell-granules taking place more slowly than the increase in the cell-protoplasm. A 
slower nett increase of cell-granules might clearly result either from granules being 
used up more quickly or from granules being formed more slowly. 
The effect of fasting is not very great in winter Frogs which are subjected to the 
ordinary winter temperature. The glands and their cells become somewhat smaller, 
but the granules do not ordinarily disappear from the inner part of the cells. 
But in Frogs at other times of the year, or winter Frogs which are kept in the 
warm, fasting produces a fairly marked secretory appearance; the glands are small, 
the cells of the posterior gastric region have a small non-granular inner portion, and 
the lumen is to be seen. When Frogs in this condition are fed the ordinary secretory 
changes set in, except that in twenty-four hours the glands have not or have scarcely 
recovered their initial condition. They still differ considerably from normal glands. 
We have seen that in the oesophageal glands the maximum change is produced by 
feeding the Frog with sponge. It is not so with the oxyntic glands ; in these feeding 
with readily digestible substance, as worm, is the most effective means of producing a 
change. When the oxyntic glands are examined twenty-four to forty-eight hours 
after feeding the Frog with sponge, no very great divergence from the normal hungry 
state is to be observed. The gland-cells are smaller, but there is very little sign of a 
non-granular inner zone, and the lumen is seldom obvious. The amount of acid 
contained by the sponge shows that the secretory processes have been going on. 
If however a Frog that has been fed with sponge two days previously be fed with 
