Corpus: Tonsil

The term tonsils' refers to the lymphatic organs in the mouth (cavum oris) and throat (cavum pharyngis) of domestic mammals.

The tonsils are mucosal organs that are largely constant in shape, structure and position in the individual animal species. They are defined as an assembly of subepithelial or submucosal lymphoreticular tissue that forms at specific sites on the mucosa of the oral or pharyngeal cavity.

The lymphoreticular tissue with its numerous lymph nodules lies either under a flat and smooth epithelial cover, or it is an accumulation of the mucosal bellows of the lymph nodules. In addition, the tonsils are encapsulated against the surrounding tissue, have numerous blood and lymph vessels and are surrounded by mucous or mixed glands. As their epithelial cover is densely interspersed with lymphocytes on the surface and in the depth of the crypts, this is referred to as a lymphoepithelial organ.

Detritus masses can accumulate in the depths of the epithelial funnels, which are known as tonsil heads and consist of white blood cells, dead epithelial cells and lining particles as well as bacteria.

Classification[Bearbeiten]

Tonsils can be categorised as follows due to their different structure:

• Squamous tonsil (tonsil without bellows): Here the lymphoreticular tissue lies under a flat, crypt-free epithelial cover, so that mucosal bellows are absent.
• Bellows tonsil (tonsil containing bellows): In contrast to the tonsils without bellows, bellows tonsils have mucosal bellows with epithelial crypts for surface enlargement.

Both tonsils without and containing tonsils can bulge out to form a bulge (bed) or form a deep mucosal bay (pit). Based on this, the tonsils can be divided into a

• bed tonsil or a
• pit tonsil.

These structural differences result in the following options for categorising tonsils:

• Beet tonsil with bellows
• Beet tonsil without bellows
• Pit tonsil with bellows
• Pit tonsil without bellows

Occurrence[Bearbeiten]

The individual tonsils are labelled differently according to where they occur:

• Tonsilla lingualis (lingual tonsil)
• Tonsilla palatina (palatine tonsil)
• Tonsilla veli palatini (palatine tonsil)
• Tonsilla paraepiglottica (lateral epiglottic tonsil)
• Tonsilla pharyngea (pharyngeal tonsil)
• Tonsilla tubaria (tubal tonsil)

All these tonsils together form a lymphatic ring, which is known as Waldeyer's pharyngeal ring.

• Nickel, Richard, August Schummer, Eugen Seiferle. Volume II: Organ systems. Textbook of the anatomy of domestic animals. Parey, 2004.