CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 189 



although he had followed Tillmanns' method of maceration, he accidentally 

 made momentary pressure on the glass cover and hereupon obtained satis- 

 factory proof of the fibrillar constitution of the basis-substance. Beeves * 

 has also convinced himself of the existence of normal fibrillation in human 

 cartilage. Ziegler seems to have done the same ; t and Flesch regards it as a 

 matter beyond question. He speaks of it as " generally known and most 

 easily demonstrable." t Furthermore, he thinks that some portions, or per- 

 haps layers, of the basis- substance are more compact than others, and that 

 this may also account for the facility of cleavage in determinate directions. 



Leidy insisted that the basis-substance of hyaline cartilage has a pecul- 

 iar filamentous structure, but his interpretation, that the granular filaments 

 run simply parallel to each other, does not cover the truth, and has not 

 attracted any attention. With the exception of Leidy, however, no one, 

 until nine years ago, seems to have questioned the homogeneousness of the 

 mass of basis-substance in which the separate corpuscles were supposed to be 

 imbedded. In 1872, Heitzmann|| first proved the presence of a net-work 

 structure in the basis-substance. Somewhat similar appearances had pre- 

 viously been more or less vaguely described, but not properly interpreted or 

 appreciated, by Remak, J[ by Heidenhain, 1 by Broder, 2 by Frommann, 3 and 

 possibly by others. 



After Heitzmann, Hertwig 4 observed processes of living matter pene- 

 trate the basis-substance of reticular cartilage; and Colomiatti stated 8 that 

 he had failed to find cell offshoots in hyaline cartilage, either after treatment 

 with gold or silver or in vivo, although he had seen cartilage-cell offshoots in 

 other than hyaline cartilage. 



I have had the opportunity to repeat Heitzmann's investigations under his 

 own eye and with his assistance, but the results as to their correctness at 

 which I arrived were, to the best of my belief, uninfluenced by him. I 

 reported in 1875 6 that I had seen the net-work structure in the corpuscles 

 of hyaline cartilage, in the nucleus and in the basis-substance, exactly as 

 Heitzmann had described it two years previously. 7 



In January, 1876, Thin's memoir was published, 8 in which he reported 

 that, in particular preparations, he had seen "fine glistening fibers enter the 

 cartilage substance, into which, however, he has not been able to follow 

 them." Again: "The ordinary granular protoplasmic cells of hyaline car- 

 tilage are analogous, according to the views of the author, to the stellate 



* " On the Structure of the Matrix ol Human Articular Cartilage." British Medical 

 Journal, Nov. 11, 1876, p. 616. 



t Bericlit der 50. Naturforsch. Versamrulung zu Miiucheu, 1877. 



* Loc. cit., p. 74. 



" Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia," vol. iv., No. 6, 

 1848 ; and American Journal of Medical Sciences, April, 1849, p. 282. 



II " Wiener Medizin. Jahrbiicher," Heft iv., 1872. 



it " Ueber die Entstehung des Bindegewebes und des Knorpels." Archiv fur Anatomie, 

 1852, p. 63, et seq. ! Loc. cit. 



"Ein Bcitrag zur Histologie des Knorpels." Dissert., Zurich, 1865. 

 " Untersuchungen iiber die normale und pathologische Anatomie des Riickenmarkes." 



II. 



riieil. Jena, 1867, pp. 29, 30. 



Loc. cit. 5 Loc. cit. 



"Transactions of the American Medical Association," vol. xxvi., 1875, pp. 163, 164. 



" Untersuchungeu iiber das Protoplasma. II. Das Verhaltuiss zwischen Protoplasma 

 und Grumisubstanz im Thierkorper." Sitzungsber. d. K. Akad. d. Wissensch. in Wien, Ixvii., 

 May, 1873. 



s It is dated August, 1875, loc. cit 



