230 



FIBRO-LIGAMENTOUS TISSUE. 



and the elastic covering of the spleen ; it is found in the rami- 

 fications of the bronchia, in various parts of the eye ball, and in 

 the ligaments of the larynx and os hyoides including the vocal 

 chords ; we might also add, the elastic membrane of the nose 

 and ear, which are more allied to it, than to cartilage, though 

 they are called membraniform cartilage. This yellow elastic 

 tissue (^tissue jaune) unlike other ligamentous tissue, yields no 

 gelatine on boiling. It resists decomposition for a very long 

 time, either by maceration, putrefaction, or digestion ; it becomes 

 brown and transparent on drying, but not brittle like cartilage. 

 Fig. 50.* When examined with the mi- 



croscope, it is found to bear in 

 the arrangement of its fibres 

 a strong resemblance to a 

 net work of capillary vessels. 

 Its fibres are rigid, prismatic 

 in form and about the ^ 

 part of a line in diameter, 

 highly elastic and interlaced 

 with each other at all angles ; 

 its embryonic cells are elon- 

 gated and mixed with the 

 fibres. If injured it is very 

 imperfectly reproduced ; a dense fibrous tissue being substi- 

 tuted in its place. It is very sparingly supplied with blood- 

 vessels. 



Of the Fibro-cartilaginous or Ligamento-cartilaginous Tissue. 



— There is another variety of the desmoid tissue, which holds 

 a middle station between ligament and cartilage, partakes 

 partly of the nature of both, and has been treated of by Bichat 

 as a distinct tissue under this compound name. Vesalius and 



* Elastic tissue from the middle fibrous coat of the aorta of the ox magnified 

 300 diameters. The interlangled fibres, and elongated cells are well shown 

 (from Gerber). These fibres, according to Henle, are contractile, and resemble 

 somewhat the muscular fibres of the stomach. 



