90 



PRACTICAL HISTOLOGY. 



and acquires a jagged outline, fluid collecting in the 

 interspace which is now left. This clear fluid is 

 stated by some to be water which has permeated 

 the matrix, and p-issing into the cell-space has 



Fig. 18. 



pushed, as it were, the cell substance away. But 

 the more probable explanation is that the cartilage- 

 cells, by virtue of a certain amount of vital contrac- 

 tility which they retain, shrink on the application 

 of the water, as they do on the application of many 

 other reagents and on the passage of an electric 

 shock, and* that the clear fluid which collects around 

 them is expressed from their protoplasm as it con- 

 tracts. "Whatever the explanation may be, the effect 

 is this: that the now jagged, shrunken cell-body 

 assumes, instead of the clear aspect which in the 



