118 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



rounded in the same way by successively smaller, cellular 

 envelopes, and which, apart from the rest of the gland, would 

 form a sort of cellular sponge. The organs composed of seve- 

 ral membranous layers, as the stomach, the intestine and 

 bladder have cellular tissue between their different layers. 

 Certain very compound organs, as the lungs, have more or 

 less cellular tissue round each of the parts which enter into 

 their structure: the quantity of cellular tissue is generally 

 proportioned to the number of different parts that the organ 

 contains. For in proportion as the cellular tissue is divided 

 and subdivided to embrace the finer parts of the organs, it 

 becomes itself finer, and its envelope thinner; thus it is that 

 the small arteries are surrounded by a finer tissue than the 

 larger ones. The envelopes formed by the cellular tissue are 

 in general thicker, in proportion as the parts execute more mo- 

 tions, hence the predominance of this tissue in the muscles over 

 the glands. Certain organs, such as ligaments, tendons, bones 

 and cartilages have no free and distinct cellular tissue in their 

 thickness. In order that it be apparent, it is necessary gene- 

 rally that the organs present appreciable intervals between 

 their component parts: thus the ligaments which have appa- 

 rent fibres, show the cellular tissue that separate these fibres 

 in the others none is to be found. 



142. Not only does the cellular tissue enter into the com- 

 position of all the organs, it also forms the basis of them all 

 textus organicus, seu parenchymalis and composes per se, 

 several of them: this it is, or the fibre or substance that forms 

 it, if you will, that constitutes (varying only in degrees of 

 consistence) the serous membranes, the dermis, the vessels, 

 the ligamentous tissue, in a word, almost all the parts, with 

 the exception of the nerves and muscles, even these, differ 

 from it only in the addition of the globules. The horny and 

 epidermic parts, alone have nothing in common with the cel- 

 lular tissue. Haller and some other anatomists have placed 

 the spongy or cavernous tissues and aerial vesicles of the 

 lungs in the cellular tissue; but these parts have a peculiar 

 disposition, which will not allow them to be confounded with 

 the cellular tissue. The cavities of the hyaloid membrane, 



