124 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



stance of the villosities of the mucous membranes, parts which 

 absorb, and whence, absorbed substances pass into the vessels. 

 Previous to being brought into the vessels, the matters ob- 

 sorbed by the cellular tissue, which by way of opposition to 

 the rest we may call external or superficial, no doubt undergo 

 elaboration or changes. As foreign matters, before entering 

 the vessels, have to pass through the cellular tissue, the organ 

 of absorption, so also those which are thrown out from the 

 vessels, traverse the cellular tissue, the organ of secretion, 

 previous to being deposited on the surfaces on which they 

 are poured. 



The cellular tissue which envelops each organ in particular, 

 has been considered as forming for it an isolating atmosphere, 

 which circumscribes its actions, whether hygid or morbid: 

 observation frequently contradicts this assertion, and when 

 the fact is so, it is in the peculiar texture of the organ and the 

 variety of agents, that we must seek an explanation, and not 

 in this pretended atmosphere. 



The cellular tissue which penetrates into the thickness of 

 the organs, reunites all their parts. 



As to the organic cellular tissue or parenchyma, it forms 

 the base or essential element of each organ, and presents these 

 remarkable differences. In the most rational hypothesis re- 

 specting the seat of nutrition^ it is admitted that the nutritive 

 matter is deposited out of the vessels in the cellular substance, 

 which is the base of the organs, to be assimilated to them, and 

 that it is thus, the essential organ of nutrition. However it 

 may be as to the hypothetical uses, attributed to the cellular 

 tissue, it has incontestably very important ones in the organ- 

 ism. 



151. The phenomena of the cellular tissue either in health 

 or sickness, are connected with those of the other parts. Thus 

 organic lesions of the heart, and the derangements of the pul- 

 monary respiration and perspiration, often occasion there an 

 accumulation of serum. The same thing takes place in the 

 alterations of various secretions, that of cutaneous transpira- 

 tion particularly. Its inflammations, generally cause fever. 

 The suppurative inflammation which is occasioned in it by 



