FIBRES; CONNECTING TISSUE. 19 



of the alkali. All of the other elements which enter 

 into the composition of the ligamentous tissue are dis- 

 solved, whilst the elastic fibres remain unchanged. 



The cellular element of connecting tissue (the plas- 

 matic cell) is a reeent discovery ; we are indebted to 

 Virchow for the first thorough exposition of its nature, 

 and especially of its important pathological relations.* 



Plasmatic cells are minute corpuscles, sometimes piasmatic ceiis, 

 fusiform, but more frequently star-shaped, with sharp 

 outlines, and connected with each other by means of 

 their branching prolongations, so as to constitute a 

 network similar to that formed by the cells of bone. 

 (PL III. fig. II. 1 ; fig. III. 2 ; fig. IV. 3.) 



In tendons, we find piasmatic cells arranged in a 

 longitudinal series, between the fasciculi of connective 

 fibres. (PL III. fig. II. and III. ; PL IV. fig. I.) In 

 the skin and mucous membranes they are distributed * 



* It will have been already noticed by the reader, familiar with the 

 present attitude of Histology in Germany, that our author has fully 

 adopted the somewhat novel views of the celebrated Professor of Berlin. 

 The assertion in the preceding chapter, that every cell must take its 

 origin from a previously existing cell, is one of the new doctrines of Vir- 

 chow, who denies that cells ever make their appearance by spontaneous 

 generation, according to the generally received pathology of the present 

 day, in an appropriate blastema or exudation, and insists that they a^e 

 always produced by endogenous growth, or by fissure and cleavage of 

 preexisting nuclei and cells. 



The discovery of the so-called piasmatic cell, as an element of con- 

 necting tissue, was first announced by Virchow at Wurzburg, where 

 he was then professor, in 1851, and these cells play a most important 

 part in the new pathological views which have since been so ably deve- 

 loped in his more recent and elaborate work on " Cellular Pathology," 

 published at Berlin in 1858. Their existence was at first disputed by 

 Henle, but admitted by Kolliker, Leydig of Wurzburg, Weber of Bonn, 

 and most other German authorities. (Ed.) 



