DR. BEALE, OX TUK TISSULS. 25 



There is no secretion, and the changes occurring in such a 

 texture must be slow. 



They (connective tissue corpuscles) are found in connexion 

 with the capillaries of the ciliary process of the eye and those 

 of the ^lalpighian bodies of the kidney in greater immber 

 than with capillaries generally. They are numerous in the 

 cornea, in fibrous tissue, and in inflammatory lymph, and 

 although present in some forms of cartilage they are absent 

 in others. It is not easy to understand why they should be 

 very numerous in some tissues situated quite close to vessels, 

 and absent in others separated a considerable distance from 

 the vessels. AVhy they should be present in some textures 

 which undergo slight change, and absent in others where 

 important nutritive changes must be continually and rapidly 

 taking place. Why the soft, permeable, temporary, mucous 

 tissue of the cord should require a wonderful nutrient system 

 of this kind, while the hard and much less permeable 

 cartilage is destitute of any such arrangement. Why the 

 '' cells " should be arranged in linear series in tendon and 

 fascia, stellate in periosteum, perichondrium, and fibro- 

 cartilage. Why the radiating tubes should be so distinct 

 and so large in the mucous tissue of the cord, periosteum, 

 and certain forms of fibro-cartilagc, and so difficult of demon- 

 stration in tendon, and so narrow that the advocates of the 

 doctrine are compelled to admit that in adult tendon the 

 indisputably solid fibres of yellow elastic tissue are their re- 

 presentatives, and are forced to support their argument with 

 the statement, that at least at an early period of development 

 the fibres of yellow elastic tissue are hollow? If the young 

 white fibrous tissue, which is comparatively freely supplied 

 with vessels, requires a special system of nutrient canals we 

 should expect to find such canals at least persistent in the 

 adult where the tissue is farther removed from the blood, 

 instead of which they appear to become occluded as the 

 necessity for their existence increases. Moreover, I have 

 adduced instances of white fil^rous tissue with parallel fibres, 

 in which no fibres of yellow elastic tissue could be demon- 

 strated, although the arrangement of the nuclei was the same 

 as in other forms of this structure. 



It is to be observed, however, that the stellate arrange- 

 ment does exist in cases where a tissue is gradually increasing 

 for a considerable period of time in all directions. In the 

 cartilage of which the semicircular canals ai'e composed in 

 the frog, the masses of germinal matter do communicate, 

 while in the adjacent cartilage of the temporal bone no such 

 arrangement exists. In periosteum and i>j the areolar tissue 



