366 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



anatomy that has given rise to the greatest number of writings 

 and investigations. Malpighi, the first author who deserves 

 mention, considers the tissue of the bones as resulting from 

 laminae, fibres, and filaments, with an intermediate bony juice. 

 It is, according to him, like a sponge filled with wax. Gag- 

 liardi admits laminas or bractea3, and bony threads of different 

 forms, which resemble them. Havers is pretty much of Mal- 

 pighi's opinion, and admits laminae formed of fibres, and con- 

 nected by the bony juice. Lasone describes laminae formed 

 of ossified fibres, connected with each other by oblique fila- 

 ments. Reichel, having examined portions of bones softened 

 in a mineral acid, saw that they might be divided into lami- 

 nae, and then into fibres, forming a porous and tubular whole, 

 which is continuous with the spongy substance. Scarpa con- 

 cludes, from the examination of healthy and diseased bones, 

 of bones entire and deprived of earthy substances, and of 

 bones before and after their entire envelopment, that the osse- 

 ous tissue, even the compact substance, is a cellular and reti- 

 culated tissue, entirely similar to the spongy substance. Me- 

 dici has observed, and the circumstance has long been known 

 to those who extract gelatine from bones, that the compact 

 substance of the long bones, deprived of earthy salts by the 

 action of a weak acid, divides into several Iamina3 or layers, 

 adhering to each other by fibres. 



583. To examine the texture of the bony tissue, it being 

 extremely hard, one is obliged to have recourse to chemical 

 processes which, in decomposing the bone, must have some 

 action upon the part which remains subjected to examination. 

 Be this as it may, if a bone be immersed for some days in a 

 vegetable acid, or in a mineral acid diluted with water, the 

 saline substance which enters in large proportion into the 



V. Malacarne, Jluduarlum obs. et icon, ad osteoL et osteopath. Liidwigii et 

 Scarpoe, Patav. 1801. Howship, Microscop. Observ. on the Structure of 

 Bone, in Medico-Chir. Trans, vol. vii. Lond. 1816. M. Troja, Observazioni 

 es edperimcnti sullc ossa, Napoli, 1814. Medici, Esperienze intorno alia tis- 

 situra organica ddk ossa, in opuscoli scientifici, t. ii. Bologna, 1818. Const 

 derazioni intorno alia tess. org. ddk ossa, scritte da M. Medici, &c. in ripusta 

 allc oppos.falt. dal S. D. C. Spcranza, e dal S. Cav. Jl. Scarpa, Bologna, 1819 



