172 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



They become a little thickened, redden to a greater or less ex- 

 tent, are covered with albuminous granules, and sometimes 

 finally form adhesions. The inflammation may terminate by 

 resolution, and it then leaves a stiffness, occasioned by the 

 thickening of the surrounding parts : the membrane itself, 

 also, generally remains thickened. Flowing of pure synovia, 

 lactescent serum, or serum containing albuminous floculi, or 

 even true pus, may also result from the inflammation. The 

 adhesions it finally forms, constitute one of the species of an- 

 chylosis. There are, as is well known, several kinds of this 

 disease: they all depend, however, upon the changes of the 

 synovial membrane, and sometimes of the parts exterior to it. 

 Thus in false anchylosis, there appears to be a thickening, an 

 induration of all the parts surrounding the articulations. Ano- 

 ther species, to which, if worthy of preserving, the epithet 

 false, might be applied, is characterized by adhesions of the 

 synovial membrane. The articulation then becomes an am- 

 phiarthrosis, bridles or synovial lamina uniting the diarthro- 

 dial surfaces: these bridles are so numerous that they repre- 

 sent a sort of cellulosity; according to their number, length 

 and extensibility, the motions are more or less limited; a 

 thickening and induration of the soft parts, are added to this, 

 the end of all which is, that the parts never perfectly resume 

 their accustomed motion. In true anchylosis, adhesions are 

 not only established between the articulating surfaces, but these 

 surfaces become soldered together, confounded, the continuity 

 is perfect between the bones, whose compact laminae, as well 

 as whose cartilaginous laminae which separate them, finally dis- 

 appear, so that their spongy tissue is confounded; this change 

 begins in the synovial membrane, for this reason we speak of 

 it here. Ulceration is a more rare termination of inflamma- 

 tion in the synovial membranes. 



220. In white swellings, among which are included various 

 changes, such as inflammation, dropsy, diseases of the carti- 

 lages, &c., is found an alteration peculiar to the synovial mem- 

 branes: it is a state in which these membranes are converted 

 into a fungous substance, from whence springs a vegetation 

 that extends to the skin, and even penetrate through it. Reima- 



