250 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



primitive fasciculi are inserted 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 semipenniform and 

 penniform muscles ; in those, whose tendons of insertion com- 

 mence as membranous expansions (soleus, gastrocnemius, &c), 

 and which arise from the surfaces of fascise, bones, and car- 

 tilages. Where, on the other hand, aponeuroses or tendons, 

 with their elementary 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 fasciculi; 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, carti- 

 lages, fibrous membranes {sclerotica, sheath of the optic nerve, 

 tendinous fasciee), ligaments, and synovial membranes (subcru- 

 ralis, &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, deltoideus, latissimus dorsi, ilio-psoas, ylutcei, &c.) the ten- 

 dinous 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 



