x 94 OSSEOUS SYSTEM. [sect. I03. 



granules; and secondly, in the more and more abundant deposition 

 of calcareous matter in the matrix and the thickened walls of the 

 bone-capsule. In consequence of this process, the new osseous 

 substance becomes whiter and whiter to the naked eye, and appears, 

 under the microscope, darker and more transparent. It also be- 

 comes more homogeneous, and the sharp outlines of the bone- 

 capsules get more and more faint, till at last they appear not as 

 cellular bodies lying free in the matrix, but coalesced with the 

 latter, being recognisable only by their peculiar stellate cavities — 

 the so-called bone-corpuscles, or lacunse, and canaliculi, together 

 with Virchoiv's bone-cells enclosed by them. 



If, after becoming acquainted with the process of the formation 

 of the lacunse in the rachitic bone, we endeavour to obtain an 

 insight of that in the normal bone, it is not found so difficult as 

 formerly, when hypotheses the most various, and without reliable 

 basis, were current. Still the investigation of the point in question 

 in human bones, as well as in those of animals, during develop- 

 ment, is very laborious, and often yields but small return. It may 

 here with certainty be seen (see mj-Micr. Anat., tab. iii.), that the 

 cartilage-capsules, a little within the border of ossification, become 

 thickened and occupied with calcareous granules, whilst their 

 cavities and contents still remain partially visible. The capsules 

 so encrusted may also be isolated ; but the manner in which the 

 alterations further proceed cannot be seen with nearly the same 

 definiteness as in rachitic bones, since _ further inwards the young 

 medulla, with its vessels and the calcareous granules, render almost 

 everything indistinct; and it is only in the parts of the bone 

 which have become homogeneous and more transparent, that 

 lacunse — by this time almost completed — can be clearly distin- 

 guished. Nevertheless, according to all that we observe, there 

 cannot be the slightest doubt, that the processes are essentially the 

 same as in rachitic bones, only that the ossification of the thickened 

 walls of the cartilage-capsules goes through two stages, instead of 

 only one, inasmuch as they are at first granular, from the depo- 

 sition of calcareous particles, and then become homogeneous. 

 Moreover, even in the perfectly normal skeleton of the adult I 

 have found some places, viz., the symphysis pubis, the interver- 

 tebral disks, and the sacro-iliac synchondrosis, where, at the 

 boundary between the cartilage and the bone, cartilage-capsules of 1 

 the most beautiful description, and in the most various stages of 

 transition into bone- capsules, may be seen, lying free in the matrix 

 of the cartilage; some have thickened walls, with more or less 



