CHAPTER VI. 



THE SUPPORTING TISSUES. 



The supporting tissues are comprised of those tissues 

 which give support to the delicate organs of the body and 

 their component cells. They are distributed throughout the 

 entire body and give form and shape to the same. Includ- 

 ing all the connective tissues and not merely the bony 

 skeleton, these supporting tissues would preserve the actual 

 size, appearance, and contour of the body, even if every 

 vestige of their tissues could be removed. The body with 

 nothing but its system of supporting tissues would remain 

 apparently so unaltered that the absence of all the vital 

 parts might not even be suspected by the observer. 



The supporting tissues naturally fall into four divisions : 

 First, the osseous; second, the cartilaginous; third, the 

 connective; and fourth, the humors. All of these tissues 

 are alike, in the fact that they are formed not out of cells, 

 but from the product of cells, somewhat in the way in 

 which a cobweb is formed not out of spiders, but as the 

 product of their secretion. Not being made up of living 

 cells, therefore, these tissues are in a sense dead matter, 

 although the cells that produce them frequently remain in 

 the tissue, forming a very integral part of its structure. 

 The cells that produce bone are called bone corpuscles, or 

 osteoblasts; the cells that form cartilage are the cartilage 

 cells, or chondrioblasts ; those that form the connective 

 tissues and the humors are called connective tissue cor- 

 puscles. All of these cells resemble very closely the white 

 corpuscles of the blood, and are probably nothing but 

 slightly differentiated cells set apart for the purpose of 

 secreting and maintaining the supporting frame-work of 

 the body. 



(75) 



