GENERAL ANATOMY. 



&c. have placed it among the solid or non-injectable parts, q 

 v. d. that it is without the circulating track of the vessels. The 

 blood, nevertheless, may pass into its canals or peculiar cavi- 

 ties, but then there is inflammation. The nerves, in like man- 

 ner, do not appear to stop or terminate in the cellular tissue. 

 This tissue forms a true and separate substance, traversed by 

 nerves and blood-vessels in every direction, and in which a 

 liquid is left by the latter only. 



147. It is, in fact, continually bathed and humected by a 

 very tenuous liquid, which it imbibes, and whose quantity is 

 so small as to be scarcely sensible; the word vapour is conse- 

 quently used to designate this fluid. If we make an incision, 

 in the cellular tissue of a living animal, it is this liquid that 

 moistens the fingers; introduced into the wound in cold 

 weather, a vapour arises from the divided tissues, that is con- 

 densed and rendered visible, by the external air; it arises both 

 from the cellular tissue and the white vessels. In anasarca, the 

 liquid of the cellular tissue, accumulated, and perhaps altered, 

 greatly resembles the serum of dropsical patients; it is coagula- 

 ble like the latter, and appears even to contain a certain quan- 

 tity of albumen, water, and some salts. 



148. The cellular tissue is the first part formed in the em- 

 bryo; it is also found in the very lowest order of animals. This 

 tissue, at first liquid, and very abundant, diminishes in propor- 

 tion as the organs become developed, and acquires consistence 

 at the same time. Even at birth, it is still diffluent in the in- 

 terstices of the muscles, and very soft under the skin. Its den- 

 sity continues to increase in old men, and it is almost fibrous 

 at a very advanced age in those parts which in the infant are 

 very soft. The cellular tissue is looser and more abundant in 

 women than in men. JBlurnenbach, gives as a character of the 

 organization of man, compared to that of other animals, the 

 presenting of a softer and tenderer tissue, which gives him a 

 greater facility of motion. 



149. The power of formation of the cellular tissue is high> 

 Jy developed: it is the first part formed; it increases acciden- 

 tally, is completely formed at once and is reproduced when 

 it has been destroyed, with the greatest promptitude, as is 



