CHAP, ill.] AREOLAR TISSUE. 75 



the latter. The wavy bands of the white fibrous part, on being 

 touched by the acid, may be seen to expand en masse, and not as 

 though they consisted of a mere bundle of smaller filaments ; yet 

 there often remains in them an appearance of more or less wavy 

 transverse lines at pretty equal distances, remotely resembling those 

 on the fibre of striped muscle. These we are unable to explain. 

 The acid also brings into view corpuscles of an oval shape, often 

 broken into fragments, and stretching for some distance along the 

 interior of the band. These seem to be the nuclei of the cells from 

 which the bands have been originally produced. 



In the earliest period at which the areolar tissue can be examined, 

 Schwann has described it as consisting of nucleated particles, send- 

 ing offsets on the opposite sides, and connecting themselves with 

 others in the vicinity. The threads thus formed are at first homo- 

 geneous ; the longitudinal streaks and the wavy character appear 

 subsequently (fig. 7). His description is drawn from the white 

 fibrous element; but it may be extended to the yellow also. 



We have observed frequently among the threads of areolar tissue 

 taken from adult subjects a number of corpuscles (fig. 6, d), either 

 isolated, or having very delicate prolongations among the neigh- 

 bouring threads. These seem with great probability to be either 

 advancing or receding stages of the tissue. 



It is not known whether the ultimate elements of the areolar 

 tissue have any immediate attachment or union with the other 

 tissues, among which they lie, or whether they merely enclose them 

 by the complexity of their web. 



By the endless crossing and twining of these microscopic fila- 

 ments, and of fasciculi of them, among one another, a web of 

 amazing intricacy results, of which the interstices are most irre- 

 gular in size and shape, and all necessarily communicate with one 

 another. 



This is well seen by forcibly filling the tissue with air or water 

 in any region. In the living body this is very obvious in anasarca, 

 and in traumatic emphysema, as in the remarkable case related by 

 Dr. W. Hunter in his celebrated paper (Med. Obs. and Inquir. vol. 

 ii. p. 17), where the whole body was blown up so tensely as to 

 resemble a drum. 



The interstices are not cavities possessed of definite limits, be- 

 cause they are open on all sides, and ultimately constituted out of a 

 mass of tangled threads. The application of the term, cell, to them, 

 is therefore inappropriate ; and it cannot be wondered at, that it 

 should have led to much confusion. In certain situations, how- 



