232 Mor/holoyy aund Physiology of A reas of Laegerhans
and measurements were made. I at first considered this ap-
parent atrophy as due to the poorer differentiation caused by
the changes in the acinar cells, but they may represent the earlier
and transitory atrophic changes noted by Sauerbeck, Ssobolew,
and others, especially as in those animals that lived more than
sixty days the areas appeared perfectly normal.
After some time, in some of my cases the duct became per-
meable again, as shown by passing a colored fluid through it into
the duodenum, and in one case the enlarged and sclerosed duct
broke through to the surface of the pancreas and so found vent
for the secretion. In either case, there was a partial regenera-
tion of the glandular tissue, and the regenerated tubules seemed
to originate from the old, collapsed tubules that made up the
atrophied lobule. The cells, though non-granular, flattened,
non-functionating, and appearing like connective-tissue cells,
had not lost the power of functionating and soon regained the
appearance of secreting acini. In such glands, shown espe-
cially well in two experiments (No. XVI, 94 days and No. XXIII,
I97 days), only two or three tubules with cells having granular
protoplasm could be seen in a lobule section generally toward
the center where the pressure of the connective tissue is less
than in the outer part of the lobule, and where the rich blood
supply of the areas of Langerhans may have helped to main-
tain the vitality of the cells. It was sometimes possible to trace
a direct transition from the flattened and collapsed membrana
propria which appeared merely as strands of connective tissue,
through strands of cells containing a few granules to tubules
staining like normal pancreatic acini. This easily and naturally
explains the rapid regeneration of an extremely atrophied gland
when an exit is made for its secretion. It may be to this method
of regeneration that Ssobolew referred when he stated that in
cats the ducts regenerated and the gland then soon regenerated,
if the degeneration had not gone too far.
In most of the cases, I examined the urine during the first
few days after the operation and again just before death.
Sugar was not found in any of these cases, and as Sauerbeck's
observations had not at that time appeared and I was unaware