156 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



diverging in opposite directions, like those of the vena porta, 

 are directed towards the serous surfaces, without always ar- 

 riving there, and without the latter presenting any well marked 

 villosities. In time, this disposition changes, as soon as the 

 canals have communicated with the old vessels, the adhesion be- 

 comes more and more vascular in the vicinity of the membrane, 

 and less and less in its centre. Organic adhesions of the serous 

 membranes, have not always the same form, they consist, gene- 

 rally in bridles or cords, larger at the adhering extremities, 

 and smaller in the centre which is free; at other times, there is 

 a great number of filaments nearly similar to the bridles; in 

 other cases, the adhesions are so multiplied, that the two parts 

 of the membrane are confounded, and seem to be replaced by 

 the cellular tissue. The texture of the adhesions, as seen in 

 the bridles, is that of the serous membranes ; they form a sort 

 of smooth sheath, filled with cellular tissue containing some 

 vessels. These adhesions are on the one hand so frequent, 

 and on the other so regularly organized, that many of the an- 

 cient physicians took them for natural ligaments, and that 

 among the moderns, Tioch has found some of them in the 

 pericardium, and Bichat in the pleura, that appeared to them 

 to belong to an original conformation. 



The bridles or bands which form the adhesions, lengthen as 

 they harden, it is even probable that in the end, their centres are 

 completely absorbed; what inclines us to this belief, is, that in 

 examining the parietes of the abdomen, soon after wounds of 

 this part, we generally find the intestine adhering to the place 

 of the wound, while at a more distant period, the adhesion is 

 merely formed by a bridle, which at last becomes itself very 

 thin; and finally, that if we observe the disposition of the parts, 

 at the end of a very long period, we find no adhesion what- 

 ever. These different degrees, were all found in the body of 

 a patient, I dissected, who was affected with melancholy, and 

 who had stabbed himself with a knife twelve or fifteen times, 

 at different periods of his life. 



198. The serous membranes undergo several transforma- 

 tions, or to speak more correctly, are the seat of various acci- 

 dental productions. Fibrous, cartilaginous, fibre-cartilaginous. 



