58 CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



In some parts of the tissue, and especially on the surface of the 

 laminge, patches of cells are here and there to be found which present 

 an epithelioid appearance in silver preparations, the cells being much 

 flattened, and joined edge to edge, with but a small amount of 

 intercellular or ground substance between them, like the layer on the 

 inner surface of a serous membrane. The cells at the margin of such a 

 patch, however, commonly have processes at their free border, and every 

 transition is found between these epithelioid cells and the ordinary 

 branched and irregular cells of the tissue. 



Corpuscles of a fusiform shape are not so common in the adult as 

 was at one time supposed ; the appearance being generally produced by 

 flattened cells seen edgewise. 



The connective-tissue corpuscles are for the most part considerably 

 larger than the pale blood-corpuscles (which are also to be found 

 in the tissue (fig. oO, /), having probably escaped from the vessels), and 

 do not, like these, exhibit active movements of locomotion, the motions 

 which have been observed in them consisting merely of slow protrusion 

 and retraction of processes or straining movements of the protoplasm 

 composing them. 



Vessels and ITerves. — Numerous hlood-vcssels are seen in the 

 areolar tissue after a minute injection. These for the most part only 

 pass through it on their way to other more vascular textures, but a few 

 seem to end in capillaries destined for the tissue itself, and dense 

 clusters of vessels are distributed to the fat-lobules. Large lymphatic 

 vessels proceeding to distant parts also pass along this texture, and 

 abundant lymphatic networks may be discovered in many parts of 

 the subcutaneous, subserous, and submucous areolar tissue, having 

 evident relation to tlie function of the membranes under which they 

 lie. A close connection subsists between the cells of the areolar tissue 

 and the commencements of the lymphatics ; for the flattened cells which 

 form the walls of the latter vessels are in contact with, and pass into, 

 the connective-tissue corpuscles of the tissue in which they lie. In 

 this manner the cell-spaces of the connective tissue are brought into 

 intimate relation with the lymphatics, and tlie latter vessels may, in a 

 certain sense, be described as originating in the net-work of cell-spaces 

 which the tissue commonly contains. Absorption readily takes place 

 from the interstices of the texture, but that process may be effected 

 through the agency of blood-vessels as well as of lymphatics. 



Larger and smaller branches of nerves also traverse this tissue on 

 their way to other parts ; but it has not been shown that any remain 

 in it, and accordingly it may be cut in a living animal apparently with- 

 out giving pain, except when the instrument meets with any of these 

 traversing branches. It is not improbable, however, that nerves end 

 in those parts of the areolar tissue, which, like that of the scrotum, 

 contain contractile fibres ; but, if present in such cases, the nerves, like 

 the vessels of the fat, are, after all, destined not to the areolar tissue 

 but to another mixed with it. 



Composition and Properties. — The areolar tissue contains a con- 

 siderable quantity of water, and consequently loses much of its weight 

 by diying. It is almost wholly resolved into gelatin by boiling in 

 water. Acetic acid causes it, that is, the bundles of white fibrils, to 

 swell up into a soft, transparent, jelly-like mass ; but the original 

 condition may be restored by a solution of an alkaline carbonate. 



