288 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



tervertebral ligaments are liable to various forms of degeneration ; they 

 may become ossified, from their cartilaginous lamellte outwards, the 

 true fibrous substance probably at the same time disappearing ; and in 

 this way anchylosis of two vertebrae frequently takes place. They may 

 become atrophied, easily broken down, and disintegrated, either in the 

 nuclear portion, or elsewhere in circumscribed spots, into a dirty gru- 

 mous matter. And lastly, it would appear that although in the normal 

 state, they contain no vessels, vessels may, under certain morbid condi- 

 tions, be developed in them ; at all events, extravasations of blood are 

 not unfrequently met with, most generally close to the bones or in con- 

 nection with them. 



In the si/mphysis pubis, the cartilaginous layer, which is thickest in 

 the centre and anteriorly, and connected with the bones by a very un- 

 even surface, consists, at the sides, where it is from J to 1 line thick, 

 of true cartilage, with a homogeneous, finely granular matrix and sim- 

 ple cells, measuring •01-0-024 of a line. In the centre, the matrix is 

 softer and fibrous, and in this situation (more particularly, it would 

 appear, in the female sex), there occasionally exists an irregular narrow 

 cavity, with uneven walls, and containing a somewhat slimy fluid, origi- 

 nating evidently in a solution of the innermost cartilaginous layers, and 

 of which manifest traces may be perceived in the cartilaginous substance 

 immediately enclosing it. The outer layers of the symphysis, which, as 

 is well known, are most developed anteriorly and superiorly, do not 

 arise, with the exception of the outermost lamellse composed of pure 

 connective tissue, directly from the bones, but, properly speaking, unite 

 only the outer portions of the above-described cartilaginous layers, and 

 consist principally of a fibrous substance, to all appearance identical 

 with connective tissue, and occasionally containing cartilage cells. 



The formation of the bone-corpuscles, as they are termed, may be 

 traced perhaps more clearly in the symphysis than anywhere else, except 

 in rachitic bone (Fig. 124). For at its osseous borders there are always 

 to be found, either half projecting from, or entirely lodged in, the carti- 

 lage, isolated, nucleated bone-corpuscles or cells, with homogeneous, and 

 (from calcareous salts) granular walls, measuring 0-012-0-016 of a line 

 with respect to which, from their development and from the considera- 

 tion of the contiguous cartilage-cells, all of which present more or less 

 thickened walls and rudiments of calcareous deposits, not the smallest 

 doubt can be entertained. Well-characterized, half and wholly ossified 

 parent cells of the same kind, with two secondary cells, and measuring 

 0*015-0-03 of a line, up to some including ten or twenty secondary cells 



into the pseudo-fibrillated collagenous portion of connective tissue is more unmistakably 

 exhibited, than in the intervertebral cartilages of a young animal, e. g., a kitten. We have, 

 in that note, endeavored to sliow that the notion of the existence of any real difference in 

 the development of the fibrillated element in the different forms of connective tissue is un- 

 founded. — Trs.] 



