46 CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



found in Schlossberger's " First Attempt at a General and Com- 

 parative Animal Chemistry/** now in the course of publication. 



G. E. D.] 



CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



THE term connective or areolar is applied to a tissue which is 

 chemically allied to cartilage, although of a simpler character, and 

 is understood by histologists to comprise not merely that porous, 

 soft, cellular tissue, characterised by the readiness with which it may 

 be filled with air, which connects together the organs and various 

 tissues of the animal organism, and was formerly termed cellular 

 tissue, but also those morphological elements which constitute the 

 solid basis or the main constituent of no inconsiderable number of 

 animal membranes and ligaments. This tissue, uniting the organs 

 with one another, which forms a network of variously sized meshes, 

 composed of long slender fibres, for the most part combined in 

 bundles, has been named amorphous connective tissue, but it very 

 gradually passes into the formed^ variety; the serous membranes 

 and muscular fascise contain a dense network of rather large meshes; 

 when the bundles of fibres follow a more definite direction, and 

 approximate more closely to one another, forming dense striated 

 masses, tendons and ligaments, will be the tissues developed from 

 them. The connective tissue may also, to a certain extent, impart 

 their form to the bursse mucosse, to the matrix of the mucous 

 membranes, to some of the above-mentioned inter-articular carti- 

 lages, to the sub-mucous areolar tissue of the intestine (the Tunica 

 nerved], to the dartos, to the longitudinal and annular fibrous coats 

 of the veins, &c. 



Unfortunately, however, a careful microscopico-mechanical ex- 

 amination shows that the tissue we are investigating is not a 

 simple one. All its parts contain, without exception, heterogeneous 

 matters, differing both mechanically and chemically from the 

 substance of the true connective tissue ; and hence chemists have 

 hitherto been unable to make an analysis of this tissue in a per- 



* Erster "Versuch einer allgemeinen und vergleichenden Thiercliemie. 

 Von Julius Eugen Schlossberger. Erste Lieferting. Stuttgart, 1854. 



t The terms amorphous and formed connective tissue were introduced by 

 Ilenle ; they correspond to the loose and solid connective tissues of Kolliker. 

 G. E. D.] , 



