Talk:Mucous membrane

Ectodermal not endodermal origin
Mucous membranes are derived from the ectoderm, not the endoderm. The endoderm structures are all inside the body. It is the ectoderm which forms skin, hair, teeth, nails, mucous membranes, the lens of the eye, the cornea, etc.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.153.161.33 (talk) 20:57, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

urethra versus ureter
Hello, this is confusing ... are both 'mucous membranes' or is this a 'typing' mistake to show a picture with the explaination text 'ureter' while in the introduction 'urethra' is mentioned? 178.145.86.124 (talk) 09:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * IIRC, each kidney drains into its respective ureter, and these drain into the urinary bladder. It in turn drains into a single urethra. (In males possessing a sufficient mix of youth and anti-neoplastic vigor, the urethra is embraced by the prostate, which ...uhh... under appropriate circumstances obstructs the flow, independent of the voluntary control normally exercised by the urinary sphincter (you know, of "A sphincter says 'Whuhhhhht?'" fame). --Jerzy•t 07:22, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Confusing
"The mucous membranes (or mucosae; singular mucosa) are linings of mostly endodermal origin, covered in epithelium, which are involved in absorption and secretion."

I mean, come on! If I knew what all the rest of the sentence meant, I wouldn't need Wikipedia to tell me what mucous membranes are. Why can't you write in plain English to an audience who's not versed in this kind of jargon? 89.139.59.233 (talk) 11:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If there were (as your rendering hints) no links from those technical terms you object to, you should try adding (internal) Wiki-link markup to most of the nouns in the passage you cite, and follow those links. Otherwise, there is no royal road to understanding, and you can't expect to find 8 pounds of insight in a 1-pound article. --Jerzy•t 07:22, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

First Paragraph (mucous membrane secreting mucus)

 * "The sticky, thick fluid secreted by the mucous membranes and gland is termed mucus. The term mucous membrane refers to where they are found in the body and not every mucous membrane secretes mucus."

Not every mucous membrane secretes mucus? Does this mean the mucous membrane is just a membrane and does not always contain glands to excrete mucus? Redtails (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this is an uncited statement that now says "some" of them secrete mucus. It's called the mucous membrane because it secretes mucous. There are other membranes that do not secrete mucous, but they are not "mucous membranes." There needs to be a citation on this statement if it is going to stay. 2601:245:C100:5E5C:5D6A:9967:24C2:52F4 (talk) 02:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

First Paragraph (layers of the mucous membrane)
I'm new here, so i don't know where to talk about the article, I hope I'm at the right place. My problem with the article is that the mucous membrane consists three layers: lamina epithelialis mucosae, lamina propria mucosae, and lamina muscularis mucosae. (W. Kuehnel- Color atlas of cytology, histology, and microscopic anatomy) Lamina muscularis mucosae isn't noted in the text. If you agree with me, please correct it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tooth.benedek (talk • contribs) 12:35, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Mucosal immunology
Needless fragmentation, would benefit readers to have this on a single page rather than fragmented into two separate articles. LT910001 (talk) 23:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a good idea to merge the two pages. It is because the term "mucosal immunology" is very commonly used in vaccine development, and thus, I think the readers would benefit more if it has its own separate wiki page.--Rezarj (talk) 05:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree with Rezarj - mucous membrane already mentioned in Immune system article - Iztwoz (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

❌ I have removed the merge tags without performing the merges. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

File:Normal gastric mucosa intermed mag.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Normal gastric mucosa intermed mag.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on November 20, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-11-20. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Grammatical number
I was confused, and i'll be looking to see if any of my confusion could have been avoided by slightly different choices of wording. In any case, here's a usage/grammar guide:
 * "Mucus" is a non-countable noun.
 * "Mucous" is an adjective (apparently meaning something close to "mucus-secreting").
 * "Mucosa" is a singular noun (apparently referring to a mucus-secreting membrane); "mucosae" is its plural.

I haven't made the effort (even to the extent of reading further in the article) to learn all the reasons why the word is countable, and if i were using it, i would be wary about whether e.g. one person has a single nasal membrane or e.g. two nasal mucosae --one in each nostril-- or (in a not necessarily ridiculous flight of fancy) an odd number of nasal mucosae (perhaps e.g. a left distal and a right distal mucosa (one inside each nostril), plus a single medial (anatomy) mucosa that wraps (behind and above the nostrils) around that beloved chunk of cartilage (nasal septum?) that separates the two nostrils. (Surely two unrelated people have distinct mucosae, but if a mucosa gets cut in half, is it then just one (split) mucosa or --perhaps only until surgically repaired-- two separate nasal mucosae?) I'm not sure dicts clarify that, but even if they do, that kind of problem is specialized enuf that it may be more effectively covered in WP than in Wikt or any other dict. I think i will add a bit of (arguably lexicographic and thus dubiously encyclopedic) text, stating that mucosae is the plural -- since i am not alone in never having studied Latin -- thus immunizing others against the confusion i experienced. I trust my colleagues to deliberate whether my enthusiasm has again run away with me. --Jerzy•t 05:35, 29 April 2017 (UTC)