GENERAL ANATOMY. 



CHAPTER I. 



OP THE CELLULAR AND ADIPOSE TISSUES. 



134. These two tissues have been generally confounded 

 under the name of cellular tissue; they are, however, very dif- 

 ferent, and should be separately described. 



SECTION I. 



OF THE CELLULAR TISSUE. 



135. The cellular tissue, has been so called, on account of 

 the areolae it forms, improperly, perhaps, styled cells. It is a 

 soft spongy tissue, extending through the whole body, sur- 

 rounding all the organs, uniting them, and at the same time 

 separating them from each other; it penetrates into their sub- 

 stance, and has the same mode of existence with all their parts ; 

 entering into the composition of all organized bodies, and of all 

 organs, it is the principal element of organization. 



According to the light in which it has been viewed, the dif- 

 ferent names of substance, body, system, organ, membrane, 

 cribrous, mucous, glutinous, intermediate, areolar, reticulated, 

 laminous, filamentous tissue, &c. have been given to it. The 

 name of cellular tissue is perhaps no better than the others; it 

 is, however, more generally adopted. 



136. Notwithstanding the very great extent and import- 

 ance of this tissue, which must have arrested the attention of 

 anatomists, at an early period, no description of it is to be 

 found in ancient authors. Hippocrates, speaks of the gener 

 ral permeability of the tissues, when he says, that the whole 



