236 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



surface, or, more rarely, perceptibly attenuated, though always rounded, 

 and are attached at a more or less acute angle to the surfaces of the 

 tendons and aponeuroses, and on the borders of the former. Notwith- 

 standing this, however, the connection between the two tissues is of the 

 most intimate kind. The extremities of the primitive fasciculi are in- 

 serted into minute pits in the surface of the tendon, whilst, at the same 

 time, the connective tissue between them, the perimysium internum, is 

 continuous with that on the surface of the tendon. These relations are 

 best observed in muscles which have lain a long time in spirit, or been 

 boiled ; in which, also, the sacciform blind extremity of the sarcolemma 

 may occasionally be clearly seen. The last-described condition occurs 

 whenever muscular fibres and tendons meet obliquely, consequently in all 

 semiperiniform and penniform muscles ; in those whose tendons of inser- 

 tion commence as membranous expansions (soleus, gastrocnemius, &c.), 

 and which arise from the surfaces of fasciae, bones, and cartilages. 

 Where, on the other hand, aponeuroses or tendons, with their elemen- 

 tary tissues, join muscles in a straight line, a real transition, for the 

 most part, takes place between the tendinous fasciculi and muscular 

 fibres, but not always, for, even in such apparently rectilinear transition 

 of muscles into tendons, there is frequently an oblique insertion of the 

 former, with free extremities, though at very acute angles ; in such 

 cases, for instance, as where tendons penetrate deeply into the substance 

 of a muscle, and there divide into separate fasciculi. From what I have 

 hitherto observed, there are many muscles in which all the fasciculi 

 connected with tendons begin or terminate free, and indeed scarcely 

 one in which this is not the case, with a greater or less number of fas- 

 ciculi ; whence it may be deduced, as a general rule, that the tendons 

 have for the most part a less diameter than the muscles. 



Besides muscles, tendons are connected with bones, cartilages, fibrous 

 membranes (sclerotica, sheath of the optic nerve, tendinous fasciae), 

 ligaments, and synovial membranes (subcruralis, &c.). With the first- 

 named textures, the connection is either indirect, with the intervention 

 of the periosteum and perichondrium, into the similarly constituted 

 elements of which the tendinous fibres, for the most part, are continuous, 

 or to the thickness of which they appear to add or direct. In the latter 

 case (tendo Achillis, tendons of the quadriceps, pectoralis major, del- 

 toideus, latissimus dor si, ilio-psoas, glutcei, &c.), the tendinous fasciculi 

 rest, at an acute or right angle, on the surface of the bones, and become 

 attached, without the intervention of the periosteum, which is wholly 

 wanting in these situations, to all the elevations and depressions of the 

 surface (Fig. 99). Close to the bones, the tendons frequently contain, 

 throughout a certain extent, delicate, isolated cartilage cells, which 

 are sometimes, however, contiguous and disposed in small rows. In 

 exceptional cases, I have also seen the tendinous fibrils, at their extre- 



