OP THE LIGAMENTOTJS TISSUE GENERALLY. 327 



the extensibility; it occurs quickly if the distention has been 

 sudden; without, however, producing laceration, and slowly if 

 it has been gradual and slow. The tenacity or power of re- 

 sistance of this tissue against laceration is very great; it per- 

 sists in all its energy even after death; the vital irritability 

 and contractility is null in this tissue; therefore we must not 

 admit, with Baglivi, movements of contraction, nor those of 

 oscillation with La Gaze. The sensibility of this tissue is ex- 

 tremely obscure and doubtful. Those writers who admit it, 

 confess that it is only developed by certain mechanical agents, 

 particularly for the various parts of this system. Thus the 

 dura mater should be sensible to the impression produced by 

 some excitants, which have no effect on other ligamentous 

 parts; ligaments should be sensible to distention, and to violent 

 pulling which precedes their laceration, while the same thing 

 does not occur in the tendons. Many doubts still exist on this 

 subject. It is wrong, however, to conclude from the experi- 

 ments favourable to the opinion of the insensibility of the liga- 

 mentous parts, that they experience no impression from irri- 

 tating causes; on the contrary, these causes induce inflamma- 

 tion, morbid sensibility, and diverse alterations in them. The 

 power of formation of the ligamentous tissue is very active. 



504. The function of this tissue, entirely mechanical, is to 

 form ties, cords, very solid envelopes, which serve to attach 

 the bones with each other, and the muscles to the bones; to 

 inclose and contain certain parts; to transmit efforts, &c. 



505. The ligamentous tissue is at first, in the embryo, soft 

 and mucous like all the other parts; it continues to have, dur- 

 ing gestation and infancy, a great deal of softness and flexi- 

 bility; it is then but slightly dense, more vascular, of a bluish 

 white, with pearly or silvery lustre, and easily soluble in boil- 

 ing water. Some parts, like the dura mater, the sclerotica and 

 periosteum, are thicker than in the adult; the tendons and apo- 

 neuroses, on the contrary, are more slender and thinner. In 

 old age, on the contrary, it becomes yellow, has less lustre, is 

 firmer, more coriacious, dryer, less vascular, and less soluble 

 in boiling water than it is in the adult. 



Notwithstanding the firmness of the ligamentous tissue in 

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