324 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



eluded another kind that I have united with it; it is the one 

 which he calls libro-cartilaginous of the articulations, and the 

 tendinous sheaths in which the tendons slide. 



SECTION I. 



OF THE LIGAMENTOUS TISSUE GENERALLY. 



498. The ligamentous organs do not form a continuous 

 connected whole; a centre and a point of reunion has been 

 sought for all the parts of this system. 



A very ancient opinion, anterior to Galen, but announced 

 in one of his treatises, ascribed to the pericranium the origin 

 of all the nervous membranes. It has been supposed that the 

 Arabs, in translating into their language the name meninges 

 by a word having the same signification, and also that of ma- 

 ter, considered the membranes of the brain as generating the 

 other membranes; this is, however, an error advocated by 

 Sylvius, who has represented the meninges as fecund am\ mo- 

 thers membranes. Since Bonn, and recently Clarus, have at- 

 tributed, in a manner, the same power to the enveloping apo- 

 neuroses. Bichat has indicated the periosteum as the central 

 part of the fibrous system. But this system, formed of inde- 

 pendent parts, has not, properly speaking, any centre; some 

 of its parts are even entirely isolated from the others. It is, 

 however, a very generally disseminated tissue, having great 

 affinity to the cellular tissue, and in various places continuous 

 with it 



499. The ligamentous tissue presents itself under two 

 principal forms, that of the band or cord, as the ligaments and 

 tendons; and that of membrane or envelope, as the periosteum, 

 the dura mater, the sclerotica, &c. These two forms, funi- 

 cular and membranous, are confounded in certain parts, which 

 are elongated and rounded at one extremity, expanded and 

 flattened at the other, such are certain tendons; besides, the 

 membranous form, although generally destined to make en- 



