THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 



259 



so, because in almost every case where cartilage cells occur in 

 the connective tissue, rows of cells of this kind, and their 

 relation to elastic fibres may be shown to exist, as well as in 

 the interarticular cartilages, or ligamentous discs of Hcnle, as 

 they are termed, afterwards to be described. On the other 

 hand, it is true, similar rows of cells are to be found in the 

 palmar fascia, tendons and ligaments, although those structures 

 possess no indubitable cartilage-cells.] 



§ 83. 



Vessels of the Muscles and their accessory Organs. A. 

 Blood-vessels. — The ramifications of the larger vessels present 

 little that is peculiar. The trunks reach the muscles in an 

 oblique or transverse direction and then subdivide, running in 

 the perimysium internum, in an arborescent manner, and at 

 acute or obtuse angles, so that 

 every part of the muscle is sup- 

 plied by them. The minutest 

 arteries and veins usually run 

 parallel with the muscular fibres, 

 between Avhich they constitute u 

 a vascular plexus, so charac- 

 teristic that, once seen, it can 

 never be mistaken. The in- 

 terstices of the plexus are 

 rectangular, with the longer 

 sides parallel to the longitu- 

 dinal axis of the muscle, and it 

 is of course composed of two 

 sets of vessels, one longitudinal, 

 which, as is shown most conclu- 

 sively in transverse sections of 

 injected muscle, lie in the fissures 

 between two muscular fasciculi, 

 or in the irregular spaces left 

 between several of them, and the other transverse, which, 

 anastomosing in various ways with the former, surround the 

 muscular fibres. Thus each separate primitive fasciculus is 



Fig. 101. Capillar}- vessels in muscle, x 350 diam.: a, artery ; I, vein ; c, capillary 

 plexus. 



i 



