210 



CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



the corpuscle. Contrary to the assertion of Spina, the filaments or offshoots 

 do, as a rule, ramify, except those that directly connect the neighboring cor- 

 puscles. Sometimes thick bundles of offshoots emanate from opposite poles 

 of the corpuscles, while intervening portions of the periphery are almost 

 devoid of offshoots. Toward the periphery of the thyroid cartilage, where, 

 as is well known, the cartilage corpuscles elongate, becoming smaller and 

 spindle-shaped and more or less parallel to each other, the offshoots are 

 given off rectangularly to the axis of the corpuscles. 



* High magnifying powers, immersion lenses No. 10 and No. 12, con- 

 clusively prove the connection of the offshoots with the cartilage corpuscles. 

 Portions of the basis-substance which, with lower powers, looked only granu- 

 lar, now show a delicate reticulum, which, even when coarser offshoots are 



FIG. 82. THYROID CARTILAGE OF ADULT. HORIZONTAL SECTION. v 



C, C, cartilage corpuscles; F, fibrous portion of cartilage; G, granules of living matter. 

 Magnified 600 diameters. 



wanting, is connected with the cartilage corpuscle through delicate and more 

 or less conical offshoots from the surface of the corpuscle. 



The light interstices between the fibers of striated basis-substance are 

 also traversed by delicate grayish thorns. Such thorns are visible even in the 

 perichondrium. Through the fibrous bundles of the perichondrium run, in a 

 nearly rectangular direction, delicate light streaks, while the interstices 

 between the bundles, and the spaces left between the corpuscular elements 

 and the bundles, exhibit delicate conical grayish threads, the direction of 

 which corresponds to these light streaks. (See Fig. 81.) 



The highest powers of the microscope disclosed in one of the specimens 

 examined another feature in the hyaline basis-substance, viz. : the presence 

 of a number of granules or minute lumps of varying shape, some interwoven 



