340 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



seems to me to be but a variety of the desmous tissue: they 

 are cartilaginiform ligamentous organs. 



530. The fibro-cartilages are either temporary or perma- 

 nent. 



The temporary fibro-cartilages are those which pass regu- 

 larly, constantly, and at determinate epochs into the osseous 

 state: they are the fibro-cartilages of ossification. They are 

 found in the substance of the tendons and ligaments. They 

 are purely fibrous in the beginning, afterwards become fibro- 

 cartilaginous, and finally osseous. The patella and sesamoid 

 bones are developed in this manner. The places where the 

 tendons rub against the bones, those, for instance, where the 

 gemini are applied on the femur, and where the peronaeus 

 lungus lateralis slides on the tarsus, are also constantly the seat 

 of fibro-cartilages of this kind. The stylo-hyoid and thyro- 

 hyoid ligaments contain grains of the same nature in their 

 substance. The sclerotica, in certain animals, presents opaque 

 spots, equally fibro-cartilaginous, which afterwards form bony 

 plates. 



531. The permanent fibro-cartilages, or at least those 

 which remain during the greater part of life, are of several 

 species. 1st, There are some which are free at their two sur- 

 faces: these are the inter-articular ligaments, menisci; they are 

 met with in thetemporo-maxillar and sterno-clavicular articu- 

 lations, sometimes in that of the acromion with the clavicle, 

 always between the femur and tibia, and between the ulna and 

 pyramidal bone. These ligaments, perfectly isolated at their 

 two surfaces, adhere by their edges or by their extremities. 

 2d, Others adhere by one of their surfaces; such are those 

 which are found wherever a tendon rubs against a bone, and 

 the presence of which is owing to the circumstance that the 

 periosteum becomes cartilaginous in these places; and those 

 the ligaments present, against which slides the tendons, as is 

 the case for the calcaneo-cuboidal ligament, against which the 

 tendon of the tibialis posticus rubs. Such are also the fibro- 

 cartilaginous roundish borders attached to the margin of the 

 glenoid and cotyloid cavities. Generally, wherever the fibrous 

 tissue is exposed to continued frictions, this tissue assumes a 



