166 GENEKAL ANATOMY. 



mon abscess of the cellular tissue, are seated in membranes of 

 this kind or in those analogous to them. 



Inflammation of the membranes of which we are treating is 

 a serious matter; it may be observed in one of the varieties of 

 paronychia. The results are adhesions or an abscess which 

 opens externally, and in either case the power of motion is 

 destroyed. When the adhesion is filamentous it is sometimes 

 finally removed. Chronic inflammation produces nearly simi- 

 lar results: it may also induce suppuration. 



Solid cartilaginous bodies have been found in the interior 

 of these membranes by Munro, and since by many others. 

 We frequently find in them, a great number of small bodies 

 resembling apple or pear seeds in size and shape, that have 

 been considered as animated and for which the name of ace- 

 phalo cystis planet, has been proposed. They have been 

 most often found under the anterior ligament of the carpus, 

 and sometimes also in other membranes of the tendons, as in 

 those of the great gluteus, of the long flexor of the thumb, &c. 

 An incision gives them issue, but the general result is a very 

 serious inflammation and at all events an intimate adhesion, 

 which, in the wrist, for instance, confounds all the flexors in 

 one single bundle, and renders the fingers motionless. The 

 inflammation of the synovial tendinous membranes generally, 

 merits the attention of pathologists. It is the same with the 

 greater part of their morbid changes, which have often, under 

 the name of white swellings, been confounded with diseases 

 of the articulations, in whose vicinity they are situated. 



ARTICLE III. 

 OP THE ARTICULAR SYNOVIAL CAPSULES. 



211. Under this name, capsulx synovialeswc designated, 

 Ihe serous membranes of the diathrodial articulations. Most 

 of them belong to the bones, some to cartilages, as is the case 

 with the larynx. These membranes, like the preceding ones, 



