CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



163 



bundles exhibit scattered 

 reduced to the size 



Iirm and dense felt-work. The 

 )blong or spindle-shaped plastids, often 

 of nuclei. The interstices be- 

 tween the bundles, the inter- 

 fascioular spaces, being filled with 

 a more or less liquid substance, 

 contain a continuous layer of 

 plastids and a few blood-vessels. 

 The bioplasson is freely supplied 

 with nuclei, and by its arrange- 

 ment between and around the 

 bundles presents a reticulum simi- 

 lar to that in the myxomatous tis- 

 sue of the umbilical cord, the dif- 

 ference being that in the latter 

 the meshes contain a jelly-like, 

 myxomatous basis-substance, in 

 the former a solid, fibrous one. 

 The peripheral portions of the 

 intervertebral disks and the inter- 

 articular ligaments are examples 

 of this tissue. We may cut 

 through such a tissue in any di- 

 rection, and invariably meet with 

 longitudinal, oblique, and trans- 

 verse sections of bundles. While 

 the longitudinal sections exhibit 

 a dense striation or fibrillation, 

 the transverse sections look ho- 

 mogeneous or slightly dotted, cor- 

 responding with the transverse 

 sections of the fibrillae. (See 

 Fig. 57.) 



In the derma of the skin, the FlG . 5 8.- SCLEROTIC OF THE BULL'S 

 mndles or groups of bundles are 

 he nearerthey aresituated 



to the SubcutaneOUS tissue j tO- tion ; T, bundles cut in a transverse direc- 

 n j-i a i-t j 11 tion; O, bundles cut in an oblique direction ; 



ward the surface they gradually p> tne ' coutinuou8 illt er s titfai uiopiasson 



become finer, and in the Uppermost la y er ' containing numerous pigment gran- 

 . . ules. Magnified 500 diameters. 



portion, the papillary layer, the 



bundles are extremely delicate. In the derma, too, the bundles 



are separated from each other by a continuous layer of nucleated 



EYE. VERTICAL SECTION. 

 bundles cut in a longitudinal direc . 



