THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 



235 



These facts, bettor than any other, contradict Reichert's view, according 

 to wliich the tendinous tissue is composed of a homogeneous substance. 

 ( Vid. § 24, note.) 



§ 81. Connections of the Tendons with other parts. — The tendons are 

 connected on the one side with the muscles, and on the other with the 

 various parts moved by the muscles. Even by the naked eye, it may 

 be seen that the former connection is effected in the one case in such 

 a way that the tendon and muscle are continued into each other recti- 

 linearly, and in the other so that the muscular fibres, with rounded 

 extremities, join the borders and surfaces of the tendons and aponeuroses 

 at an acute angle, as in the instance of the penniform muscles. The 

 microscopic conditions in these two cases are widely different. In the 

 former, the muscular fasciculi pass immediately into those of the tendon, 

 in such away that no sharply-defined limit exists between the two tissues, 



g^:':^-:Vs 



iyfe 



ifefL.i' 



and the entire fasciculus of muscular fibrils is con- 

 tinuous with a nearly equal-sized bundle of tendinous 

 fibrils (Fig. 97). Extraordinary as it may sound, I 

 must say — in order to describe the impression that 

 this sort of conjunction of muscle and tendon gives 

 me — that it is that of a continuous connection of the 

 muscular and tendinous fibrils. Where the muscular 

 fasciculi join the tendons and aponeuroses at an acute 

 angle, we find, in complete contrast with the condition 

 just described, an abrupt limit between the muscle 

 and tendon (Fig. 98). For, in this case, the fibres of 

 the muscle really end, for the most part, obliquely 

 truncated, with a slightly conical projecting terminal 



Fig. 97. — A primitive fasciculus: a, from one of the internal intercostal muscles of Man, 

 continuous into a tendinous fasciculus, b, into which it passes without any defined limit. — 

 Magnified 350 diameters. 



Fig. 98. — Disposition of the muscular fibres at their oblique insertion into the tendon of 

 the gastrocnemius (Man): a, a portion of the tendon cut longitudinally; 6, muscular fibres 

 ■with slightly conical or truncated extremities, affixed in small depressions on the inner 

 aspect of the tendon, to the border of which the pcrimijsium intermun, c, is connected. — Mag- 

 nified 350 diameters. 



