46 



NEW VIEWS OF THE GROWTH OF BONES. 



received into the cartilage, the strongest powers of the micro- 

 Fig. 8.* scope exhibiting no cells in which they 



were placed, nor any calcareous particles 

 of the size of the dispersed corpuscles ; 

 all that appeared positively was that the 

 cartilage seemed by degrees to assume the 

 aspect of bone. 



The more recent researches of Gerber,f 

 have given* if not a perfectly clear, at 

 least a more satisfactory explanation of 

 the manner in which the ossific cartilage 

 is so modified, as to form bone. The 

 primitive physical formation of all car- 

 tilage is cellular, that is they grow from 

 cell-germs, as is the case with the other 

 tissues of the body. These cell-germs or 

 cartilage corpuscles are seen at A. Fig. 8, 

 magnified 250 diameters. Between these 

 cells and filling up the vacant spaces 

 between them, is an amorphous, hyaline 

 or transparent intercellular substance ; 

 the cells themselves are filled with . a 

 softish granular matter. As the cartilage* 

 increases in growth, new cells are develop- 

 ed in the hyaline substance by which the 

 older ones are pushed farther and farther 

 from each other. The original cells pro- * 

 duce two or more young or secondary 

 cells by the development of their gra- 

 nular nuclei : between these secondary 

 cells is also formed a secondary hya- 

 line substance, and thus the orginal cells form each one a little 

 group of cells enclosed within itself, and to each group the name 



* Fig. 8. A scheme intended to represent cartilage in the progressive stages of 

 ossification, magnified 250 diameters. A. Cartilage with the regularly dissemi- 

 nated corpuscles of Purkinje cellular cartilage B. The corpuscles when ossi- 

 fication has begun, are forced into groups, between which the hyaline cartilage 

 is transformed into bone cartilage. This bone cartilage has now undergone a 

 change, so as to be chemically different from those cartilages which are to remain 



f Elements of General and Minute Anatomy by T. Gerber. London, 1842. 



