1881. 41 Eeans IN. VY. AesSez. 
closed, whether lined or unlined, whether in ‘‘ homogeneous basis-sub- 
stance,” or ‘“‘ between layers of cells,’”’ or ‘‘in cement-substance,’”! then, 
too, the bioplasson doctrine would be erroneous. 
But the result of my observations, especially those illustrated in figs. 
2, 3, and 4, admit of but one inierpretation, and that an interpretation 
favorable to the bioplasson doctrine. It is unnecessary to more than 
mention that although I have placed on record so few, I have made 
many different examinations, under many different circumstances, and 
with varying powers of amplification. I need occupy myself here with 
only the two fields drawn in figs. 3 and 4, with an amplification of 600 
and 1200 respectively. The remarkable specimens from which they 
are taken show more conclusively than it was ever before shown what 
the structure or constitution of hyaline cartilage really is. I think I 
have explained this sufficiently, but its full significance appears in its 
corroboration of the bioplasson doctrine. 
To be able to uphold the cell-doctrine, cartilage would have to be, 
using a homely comparison, like a cake composed of hard dough with 
raisins. No matter how widely we may extend the definition, to remain 
within the boundary of the cell-doctrine this metaphor must be appli- 
cable. Innumerable painstaking researches have led to various modifi- 
cations of notions entertained regarding the structure of the two con- 
stituents of the cake and their relation to each other. It may be seen 
by the most recent publications on the subject, that the acceptation of 
the existence in the dough of cleavage in certain directions, of inter- 
laminary and interfibrillar spaces, and of offshoots, even ramifying pro- 
longations of the raisin-substance, or, at all events, of an ingredient of 
the raisins, is held to be not incompatible with the celi-doctrine. If, 
however, we can represent cartilage as a filigree or framework of 
raisin-substance, in the meshes or interspaces of which framework 
blocks of dough are imbedded, certainly the fundamental view of the 
ultimate construction of the tissue is changed, and we are no longer in 
accord with the cell-doctrine, even though we be inclined to use that 
term in the widest possible sense. Look for a moment at the two illus- 
trations on the blackboard, as well as at figs. 2, 3, and 4. The upper 
figure represents a section of cartilage stained with gold chloride. 
This, as I have already explained, stains the living matter and leaves 
the basis-substance unstained. High powers exhibit the appearance, 
etc., etc. In regard toa name as a substitute for the term “cell,” I 
would say that all corpuscular masses may be called, simply, corpuscles 
1 These statements of the general beliefare quoted from the introductory paragraph of Thin’s 
memoir, **On the Structure of Hyaline Cartilage” (Quarterly Fournal of Microscopical 
Science, xvi, 1876), in which, Thin’s own views are laid down to the effect ‘* that layers of 
cells epithelial in arrangement exist in the substance of cartilage,” ‘* that both the stellate 
and the parallel systems of lymph-channels exist,”’ etc. 
