The histology of the lachrymal gland in chronic dacryocystitis / by G. E. de Schweinitz.

  • George Edmund de Schweinitz
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The histology of the lachrymal gland in chronic dacryocystitis / by G. E. de Schweinitz. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    6/10 (page 6)
    studied by Dr. J. Button Steele and myself, presented the follow- ing appearances: The acini are well constituted, the nuclei of the secreting cells being normally placed and properly stained. The protoplasm of these cells, naturally granular, appears, as compared with the protoplasm of similar cells from a normal gland, somewhat swollen, with, perhaps, beginning fatty changes, but this swelling is nowhere sufificient to close the lumina of the acini, as Bock de- scribes in his sections. The interacinous connective tissue is everywhere invaded by quantities of small round cells which are irregularly scattered, or especially gathered in rows or streets, as Bock calls them, or collected in small roundish masses. They are particularly conspicuous around the ducts, which are usually literally surrounded by them. There are no notable changes in the duct epithelium. These round cells have very large nuclei with scarcely any or no surrounding protoplasm, and possess a darkly staining nuclear membrane on the inner side of which may be seen rather large chromophilic grains, the nucleoli in the center being darkly stained. They have therefore the ordinary com- position of lymphoid cells, such as are always found in more or less chronic non-suppurative inflammations. Polynuclear leu- cocytes are not present. The bloodvessels of the trabeculae separating the gland- lobules and the interacinous capillaries are not engorged, and their walls are normal. Nowhere has the inflammatory process advanced sufficiently far to destroy the acini; in other words, there is not apparent a destructive process. (Fig. i.) It is apparent that the findings in this gland closely correspond with the observations of Bock in the portions of the gland which he removed from patients sufifering from sympathetic dacryo- adenitis, i. e., a dacryoadenitis called into existence by inflam- matory conditions of the cornea and conjunctiva. The process, however, appears to be a more chronic one, as there is an absence of engorgement of the vessels and of signs of inflammatory activ- ity. The condition difl'ers from that found in chronic non-sup- purative dacryoadenitis (mumps of the lachrymal gland) in the