I have examined microscopically all tonsils removed in private and in clinic practice at Stanford University hospitals in San Francisco for two years, in all about 2,000 pairs, with the accompanying adenoids when present. I shall describe the microscopic picture of such specimens, giving some new features and emphasizing some old ones. Various workers have touched on many of these points, but this summary of the pathologic observations is based on the primary inflammatory nature of the changes in the different tissues of the tonsil, and I do not attempt to make an artificial subclassification of the various phases of this single process. I believe that a clearer understanding of the meaning of chronic tonsillitis is thus derived. A clinical correlation is not appended.
ANATOMY
The faucial tonsil is essentially a lymphatic gland, composed, therefore, of lymphoid follicles with active germinating centers, surrounded by a delicate reticulo-endothelial stroma supporting