84 PRACTICAL HISTOLOGY. 



fine silky threads, which are to be immediately im- 

 mersed in a glass dish of salt solution. Now cut 

 away two or three of the fine threads with sharp, 

 clean scissors, and seizing them by one end with fine 

 forceps, or leading them with a needle-point, float 

 them on to a glass slide which is held immersed in 

 the fluid, and is then carefully lifted out. After 

 arranging the minute tendons as nearly straight as 

 possible on the slide, and blotting up must of the 

 superfluous salt solution or allowing it to run oft', 

 place a short piece of hair beside them, to avert the 

 pressure of the cover-glass, which is now placed over 

 the middle of the threads in such a way that, since 

 they are considerably longer than the width of the 

 cover-glass, their ends project beyond on either side. 

 The object of this is to permit them to be drawn 

 straight with needles should the superposition of the 

 cover-glass have displaced them. These ends, more- 

 over, since they are exposed to the air, soon dry and 

 stick to the slide, so that subsequent treatment with 

 reagents does not tend to displace the tendons, which 

 are thus maintained in an extended condition. Ex- 

 amined thus in salt solution, little is visible beyond 

 the slightly wavy, closely packed white iibrils, col- 

 lected, as longitudinal streaks seen here and there 

 indicate, into a few indistinct bundles. But allow 

 a little dilute acetic acid (1 part of the glacial acid 

 to 200 of salt solution) slowly to pass under the 

 cover-glass, and a remarkable change becomes appa- 

 rent. "As the acid reaches the tendons, they slowly 

 swell up and become more transparent, the fibrils 

 becoming indistinct ; and now chains of small oblong 

 faintly granular cells, each with a clear nucleus 

 situated near one end of the cell, and often opposite 

 that of a neighboring cell, come into view. These 

 are the tendon-cells, the corpuscles of the fibrous 

 connective tissue ; only the central thicker portion 

 of each, which lies in the interstice between three 

 or more tendon bundles, is seen at present ; the thin 

 lamellar prolongations, which extend between two 



