218 CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



I can fully corroborate Spina's assertions from my own 

 observations. 



(4) BONE TISSUE. 



History. The growth of the bones was the subject of careful studies in the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, long before anything positive was 

 known as to their structure. Adrianus Spigelius * was the first to maintain 

 that the bones grow either from cartilage or by apposition. 



Clopton Havers t found that bone arises from cartilage. 



Robert Nesbittt says that " there is not one single phenomenon to sup- 

 port the notion of bones being nothing but indurated cartilage, or that they 

 are produced only by a transmutation of a cartilaginous substance, and all 

 bony productions are caused entirely by the apposition of cretaceous matter." 



In the middle of the eighteenth century, Duhamel, after experiments by 

 systematically feeding various animals with madder, asserted that the bones 

 grow from the periosteum, and was contradicted by A. Von Haller, who 

 denied any participation of the periosteum in the process. Exactly the same 

 fight is carried on even in our day. 



John Hunter || found in the growth of bones "two processes going on at 

 the same time, and assisting each other : the arteries bring the supplies to 

 the bone for its increase ; the absorbents at the same time are employed in 

 removing portions of the old bones, so as to give to the new the proper form. 

 By these means the bone becomes larger, without having any material change 

 produced in its external shape." 



J. Howship H speaks of lining-membranes of the canals of the bone carry- 

 ing the blood-vessels ; he did not see the lining in full-grown bone, " possibly 

 because the circulation of the red blood is more limited in full-grown than in 

 young bone." He gives illustrations of lacunar widenings of the canals, 

 evidently caused by a morbid process. 



After the bone-corpuscles (lacunee) and their canaliculi were made known 

 byPurkinje and Deutsch (1834), Johannes Miiller l pointed out their con- 

 nection, and suggested that all these spaces are filled with lime, and should, 

 therefore, be termed canaliculi chalicophori. 



Lessing 2 first drew attention to the fact that the dark appearance of the 

 lacunas and canaliculi, seen in specimens from dry bone, is due to their con- 

 taining air, and was inclined to regard them as a lacunar system, filled, in 

 living bones, with fluid. Klebs, much later, made the wonderful discovery 

 that the contents of these spaces in older, even fresh bones, are of a gaseous 

 nature. 



*"De Forraatione Fcetu," 1631. The early literature is found in Alb. Kolliker: "Die 

 Normale Resorption des Knocheugewebes." Leipzig, 1873. The later literature, from 1836 to 

 1878, is given by M. Kassowitz : " Die Norunale Ossification," etc. Wiener Med. Jahrbiicher, 

 1879. 



t " Osteologia Nova ; or, Some New Observations in the Bones." London, 1691. 



t Human Osteogeny, explained in two lectures. London, 1731. 



$ " M6moires de I'AcadSmie de Paris." 1742. 



|| "Experiments and Observations on the Growth of Bone," from the papers of the late 

 Mr. Hunter, by Everard Home. London, 1798. 



11 "Microscopic Observations on the Structure of Bone." Medico-Chirurgical Transac- 

 tions. London, 1816. 



1 Muller's Archiv, 1836. 



2 "Ueberein plasmatisches Gefass-System in alien Geweben, iusbesonders in Knochen 

 und Zahnen." Hamburg, 1846. 



