Do the Cardiac Glands Exist ?

The macaque

Abstract

Summary: The authors performed histological and histochemical investigations on the socalled cardiac and gastric glands of the Japanese macaque and crab-eating monkey, and compared the data for both glands. The following conclusions were drawn.1. Scholars regard the glands, distributed in the immediate vicinity of the ostium cardiacum, as the cardiac glands. However, the reactions to complex carbohydrates in the glandular cells of the so-called cardiac and gastric glands are entirely the same.2. The glandular cells in the so-called cardiac and gastric glands contain pepsinogen granules. 3. It is true that the so-called cardiac glands are fairly short, but they are composed of three kinds of glandular cells which are histochemically quite similar to those in the gastric glands proper. Moreover, the so-called cardiac glands also have a few partietal cells and argentaffin cells. 4. Based on the above facts, the so-called cardiac glands are considered to represent the Istric glands themselves. Therefore, the authors believe that the cardiac glands do not exist in the macaque. 5 . Some scholars regard the cardiac glands as the mucous or serous glands. However, the cells in the neck and body of the glands contain not only several kinds of mucosubstances but also undeveloped pepsinogen granules. The mucosubstances in the cells of the glandular body are reduced with differentiation of these cells, and mature cells containing developed pepsinogen granules and scanty mucosubstances are formed. In other words, the so-called cardiac glands secrete not only mucosubstances but also pepsin. 6. The opinion of Suzuki et al. regarding the distribution areas of the cardiac glands, which spread over the fundic regions, is incorrect, and the glands which they considered as the cardiac glands, are the gastric glands themselves.