96 CONTRACTILE ELEMENTS. 



the closest connection with the muscular element, and it is 

 this which, under the names of perimysium and enveloping 

 aponeurosis, unites the muscular fibres in clusters or masses 

 of flesh, so as to admit of united action on the part of the 

 contractile elements ; but this tissue is found to be distrib- 

 uted, not only in the muscles, but throughout the other 

 organs : it was formerly called cellular tissue, but this name 

 is inadequate, for it expresses only a general disposition of 

 the tissue, by means of which it is easily penetrated by the 

 gases or liquids which it encloses in vacuoles or cells (in the 

 macrographic sense of the word). The whole body may be 

 looked upon as a mass of connective tissue, or of one of its 

 different forms, in which the more essentially active elements 

 are located. Thus, this tissue has a large share in the com- 

 position of the nervous centres, prevailing even over the 

 nervous tissue, properly so-called ; and the knowledge of this 



Fig. 23. Plasmatic cells of the cornea.* 



fact has lately given rise to entirely new views as to the 

 nature of diseases. of the cerebro-spinal centres, and even of 

 the nerves in general ; as, for instance, in sciatic neuralgia, in 

 which the pathological change is generally produced in the 

 cellular tissue of the sciatic nerve. 



The connective tissues are generally rich in embryonic 

 or phismatic globules (see above, p. 21), or their derivatives : 

 cartilaginous cell, bony cell (Figs. 24 and 25). In some 

 places these globular elements appear to have a certain 



* The cornea is here cut parallel to its surface. The star-shaped corpuscles 

 (embryonic globules or plasmatic cells) are seen flattened out, together with their 

 anastoinotic prolongations (His). 



