CONNECTIVE (CELLULAR) TISSUE. 13} 



I have up to the present time, gentlemen, brought to 

 your notice a series of tissues all of which agree in con- 

 taining either very few capillary vessels, or none at all, 

 In all these cases the conclusion to be drawn seems to be 

 very simple that, namely, the peculiar cellular, canali- 

 cular arrangement which they possess serves for the cir- 

 culation of juices. It might, however, be supposed that 

 this was an exceptional property, appertaining only to 

 the non- or scantily-vascular and, generally speaking, 

 hard, parts ; and I must therefore add a few words con- 

 cerning the soft textures which possess a similar struc- 

 ture. All the tissues which we have hitherto considered, 

 belong, in accordance with the classification which I have 

 already given you, to the series of connective tissues ; 

 fibre-cartilage, fibrous or tendinous tissue, mucous tissue, 

 bone and the teeth, must one and all be considered as 

 belonging to the same class. But to the same category 

 belongs also the whole mass of what has usually been 

 included under the name of cellular tissue (Zellgewebe), 

 and for which the name proposed by Johannes Miiller, 

 connective tissue (Bindegewebe) is the most appropriate ; 

 that substance, which fills up the interstices in the most 

 different organs, sometimes in greater, sometimes in less, 

 quantity which renders the gliding of parts one upon 

 the other possible, and formerly was imagined to enclose 

 considerable spaces (cells in an inexact sense of the 

 word), filled with a gaseous vapor or with moisture. 



Of this kind is the peculiar interstitial, or connective, 

 tissue, such as we meet with in the interior of the larger 

 muscles between the several primitive fasciculi and in a 

 still larger quantity between the several parcels, or 

 bundles, of primitive fasciculi. Numerous arteries, 

 veins, and capillaries lie in it ; and the arrangements for 

 its nutrition are the most favorable that can be imagined. 

 Notwithstanding this, however, there exists in it also, in 



