8 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



complex manner, so that in the interior of the tongue the 

 lingual muscles cannot be separately demonstrated as such, but 

 only as secondary bundles and fibres. 



The frame-work of the tongue may be said to be formed by 

 the two genio-glossi, the musculus iransversus lingua and the 

 fibro-cartilage of the tongue. The latter, which is also called 

 the lingual cartilage (fig. 170, e), is a dense, whitish-yellow, 

 fibrous lamella, placed perpendicularly in the middle of the 

 tongue, between the two genio-glossi, extending through the 

 whole length of the organ, and is not very appropriately named, 

 inasmuch as it is composed of common tendinous or ligamentous 

 tissue. It commences, low down, upon the body of the hyoid 

 bone, in connection with a broad fibrous lamella, membrana 

 hyoglossa (Blandin), which stretches from the hyoid bone to the 

 root of the tongue, and covers the extremity of the genio-glossus, 

 very soon attains the level of the musculus transversus, and, upon 

 the anterior third of the tongue, gradually diminishes, as far as 

 its point, where it terminates very low down. Superiorly, the 

 septum lingua, as this fibrous mass, 012'" thick, might well be 

 termed, ascends to within V Tl — 2'" distance from the dorsum of 

 the tongue ; inferiorly, it extends to where the genio-glossi be- 

 come lost in the fleshy mass of the tongue, and terminates here, 

 not with a defined border, but by passing into the perimysium, 

 between the two genio-glossi. On each side of this septum, 

 the genio-glossi spread out, fan -like, into the tongue (fig. 169, 

 g, 170, g, 171,/), so that they occupy the middle of the organ 

 from its point to its root, forming a long, moderately broad, 

 fleshy mass, which, however, is anything but compact. The 

 genio-glossi, in fact, when they have entered the tongue, 

 exchange a few bundles here and there, along the lower edge 

 of the septum and then break up on each side into a great 

 number of lamella, which lie one behind the other, separated 

 by small interspaces, in which are the transverse muscular fibres 

 of the tongue; the lamella are, for the most part, perpendicular, 

 but some curve forwards and backwards, towards the dorsum of 

 the tongue. 



The fibres of the genio-glossus, thus separated into distinct 

 lamella, which have, on the average, a thickness of 0*06 — 

 014'", extend as far as the septum, and then gradually take 

 a new arrangement, so as to be directed from behind for- 



