CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



211 



with the direct offshoots of the corpuscles, and some with the threads forming 

 the finer net-work of the basis-substance. They appeared to be thickened 

 points of intersection, knots, or nodes, composed of the same material as the 

 offshoots and threads themselves. They were unquestionably granules of 

 living matter. I found their greatest development in a case examined without 

 Spina's method a case which I shall describe presently. 



The observation which I am now about to record was made in specimens of 

 the thyroid cartilage removed from the body of a rather stout man, forty-eight 

 years old. After having been hardened in chromic acid solution, without any 

 other re-agent, they exhibited formations in the basis-substance which, so far 

 as I am aware, have never before been described. I have alluded to them as 



FIG. 83. THYROID CARTILAGE OF ADULT. HORIZONTAL SECTION. 



C, .cartilage corpuscle ; S, hyaline basis-substance ; G, grannies of living matter. Mag- 

 nified 1200 diameters. 



found in one of the specimens examined, with the highest powers of the 

 microscope, by the alcohol method of Spina. 



As to the cartilage corpuscles in these specimens, many of them were 

 larger and more coarsely granular than are commonly observed ; otherwise, 

 their characters and the arrangements of the basis-substance, both so-called 

 hyaline and fibrous, were like those described before. The intranuclear, 

 intracorpuscular, and intercorpuscular net-works were with high powers well 

 shown. 



The very remarkable feature was that, with quite low power, the basis- 

 substance was seen to be speckled and studded with granules or lumps, varying 

 from that of a point at the limit of the visible to that approaching the dimen- 



