134 DR. MITCHELL BRUCE. 



cimeiis. On such a preparation it was only here and there 

 that an appearance similar to that in the growing tendon was 

 to be seen, namely, rows of rectangular spaces upon the 

 fibre-bundles ; these were replaced in the adult tendon by 

 others, which, while more or less distinctly oblong, were also 

 variously branched. Between these two forms there occurred, 

 however, also many intermediate ones ; that is, places were 

 found where the linearly arranged quadrilateral spaces pre- 

 served their young characters, except that their borders 

 were notched instead of straight, while in other parts this 

 irregularity was so marked that distinct processes were found 

 uniting the spaces to each other lengthwise. When the 

 spaces happened to be viewed in profile or half profile, they 

 were seen to be connected laterally also by such processes. 



From what I have written it will be plain that I accept 

 completely the views of Boll on the relation of the cells to 

 the fibrillar bundles, a view which may be thus briefly ex- 

 pressed. — The cell elements in the young tendon are plates 

 so arranged as to bend round the fibrillar bundles, and consist 

 of a granular protoplasm enclosing a clear roundish nucleus, 

 the depth of the protoplasm being greatest at the place where 

 the nucleus is situated, and gradually diminishing outAvards 

 thence. The cell-plates are of uniform or nearly uniform 

 size, and are bound to each other by intermediate cementing 

 substance, both in the line corresponding to the longitudinal 

 axis of the tendon and in that corresponding to its trans- 

 verse. Thus, the individual cells in a tendon build by their 

 union a connected whole. This system of cell-plates might 

 be very aptly likened to a cloth composed of a number of 

 strijDCS. Each stripe consists of a sum of plates of the form 

 of a parallelopipedon, the longitudinal axis of which is at right 

 angles to the longitudinal axis of the stripe ; the nucleus of 

 each plate lies in the middle line of the stri])e, but near one of 

 the short sides, and generally so that the nuclei of two neigh- 

 bouring bundles are either as near each other or as far from 

 each other as possible. Let us further conceive the fibril- 

 bundles so enveloped in this cloth that each is surrounded to 

 the extent of half its circumference by one stripe. We should 

 then find all the appearances such as are to be found in the 

 tendon at various depths, in which the stripe would cover the 

 upper half or the under half, the right half or the left half 

 of its own bundle, as well as all the intermediate views 

 according to the degree of obliquity. 



It is well known that in the growth of the tendon the 

 fibril-bundles increase both in length and thickness, in length 

 decidedly more than in thickness. Bearing this in mind, let 



