408 ANATOMICAL AND TATHOLOGICAL OBSEKVATIONS. 



XXIV.— THE PEOCESS OF ULCEEATION IN 

 AKTICULAE CAETILAGES.— (Plate IV.) 



The question as to the vascularity of cartilages cannot now 

 excite much interest, when we know that all the textures are 

 in themselves destitute of bloodvessels, w^iich are accessory 

 parts, carriers of nourishment, not active agents in its 

 deposition. "We do not consider cartilage as a texture into 

 which no bloodvessels pass, but only as less vascular than 

 some of the others. In a large mass of cartilage, as in those 

 of the bulky mammals, or in the thick cartilages of the foetal 

 skeleton, canals containing bloodvessels are found here and 

 there ; but in the thin articular cartilages of the adult human 

 subject few or no vessels can be detected. 



It is evident, therefore, that in the process of ulceration 

 in cartilage, it cannot be the usual bloodvessels of the part 

 which are the active agents.* Still less likely is it that 

 lymphatics, the existence of which has never been asserted in 

 this texture, are the absorbing instruments. 



If a thin section, at right angles, be made through the 

 articular cartilage of a joint, at any part where it is covered 

 by gelatinous membrane in scrofulous disease, or by false 

 membrane in simple inflammatory condition of the joint, and 

 if this section be examined, it will be found to present the 

 following appearances. 



* See Mr. Aston Key's Paper iu the London Mai. Chir. Trans, vol. xviii. 

 Part I., "On the Ulcerative Process in Joints." 



