The absorptiveness and permeability of the tonsil were examined on 65 patients: simple. chronic tonsillitis 14, focal chronic tonsillitis 51 (rheumatism 15, nephritis 18, slight fever 16, heart disease 2) and 10 subjects who had normal tonsils. A solid of inorganic phosphate containing 50μc of radioisotope ³²P was inserted in a tonsillar crypt and the radiation activity was counted in the tonsil itself, blood and urine. Besides 0.5ml of physiological saline solution containing 1000 units of hyaluronidase was injected in the tonsillar parenchyma, and its influence was examined.
The following results were obtained. 1) The absorption level in the tonsil was highest in nephritis and lowest in rheumatism: the latter was even lower than normal tonsils. The similar trend was seen in blood, and the prolonged excretion into urine was proved especially in nephritis. The positive standard was fixed up when the absorption level of the tonsil showed more than 30% and the radiation count in the blood was more than 150 C. P. M. The positivity was particularly high in nephritis and slight fever, this showing marked absorptiveness and permeability in the two groups.
2) When a spreading factor, hyaluronidase, was injected in the tonsillar parenchyma, the radiation activity in nephritis and slight fever reached more rapidely to the maximum level than in others and presented great difference between simple chronic tonsillitis and focal chronic tonsillitis. This shows that a spreading factor increases the absorptiveness and permeability of the tonsil.

View full abstract

The author examined by means of the electron microscope, using ultrathin slice method, the fine structure of the epithelial cells, parenchymal cells and part of the fibers in the crypts of the palatine tonsils of a male and two female infants of six.
The tonsils examined were judged normal since the subjects complained of no tonsillopathy and there were no objective abnormal findings.
A great number of particles suspected to be infectious viruses were observable even in the epithelial layer in the crypt of the normal tonsil.
The author presumed that these caused micropinocytosis or even cytopempsis of the epithelial cells.
The existence of vacuoles and caveolae in the basement membrane of the basal cell suggested metabolism occurring between the parenchymal cells and the epithelial cells. This further suggested that the crypt epithelium was a resorptive as well as covering epithelium. Protein synthesis of the plasma cells in the parenchyma, the existence of the inclusion bodies in the reticulum cells, what seemed to be edematous reaction caused by the exudation of the plasma components into subepithelial fine structure of fibers: all these suggest that the tonsil always serves as defensive reaction of organisms.

View full abstract