OF THE SIMPLE FIBROUS TISSUES. 



227 



scarcely be said to enjoy any vital powers, and is connected solely with physical 

 actions ( 134). It is extensible in all directions, and very elastic, in virtue of 

 the physical arrangement of its elements ; and it possesses no contractility, except 

 that which it derives from the smooth muscular fibre-cells (Fig. 79) which are 

 frequently intermingled with its other elements, sometimes very copiously. It 

 cannot be said to be endowed with sensibility ; for the nerves which it contains 

 seem to be merely en route to other organs, and not to be distributed to its own 

 elements. And its asserted powers of absorption and secretion appertain rather 

 to the walls of its capillary bloodvessels, than to the threads and bands of which 

 it is itself composed. 



Fig. 21. 



The two elements of Areolar tissue, in their natural relations to one another : 1, the white fibrous element, 

 with cell-nuclei, 9, sparingly visible in it ; 2, the yellow fibrous element, showing the branching or anastomos- 

 ing character of its fibrillas ; 3, fibrillae of the yellow element, far finer than the rest, but having a similar 

 curly character ; 8, nucleolated cell-nuclei, often seen apparently loose. From the areolar tissue under the 

 pectoral muscle, magnified 350 diameters. 



223. It has been already mentioned ( 118) that the foregoing tissues maybe 

 developed in two different modes ; namely, either by the transformation of cells, 

 or by the fibrillation of a blastema. The former was the sole mode of develop- 

 ment assigned by Schwann, and the latter was represented by Henle in the same 

 light; but other observers have shown that each of these eminent histologists 

 was correct, save in the exclusiveness of his view; since both the first develop- 

 ment and the subsequent regeneration of these tissues have been seen to take 

 place after either of these methods. It is in their reproduction after injury, that 

 the process may be most conveniently studied ; and the following account of it 

 is founded on the statements of Mr. Paget, 1 who has specially attended to this 

 inquiry. The development of White fibrous tissue, in the form of Areolar tex- 

 ture, from cells, may be observed in the material of granulations, or in that of 



1 "Lectures on the Processes of Repair and Reproduction after Injuries," in "Medical 

 Gazette," 1849, vol. xliii. pp. 1069-1071. 



