36 



MUCOUS SOFTENING. 



removing the periosteunij and then breaking off chips of the 

 (?ompact tissue with pincers, and putting them under the micro- 



Conversion of bone into connective tissue : a chip taken 

 from a sternum wasting under the pressure of an aortic 

 aneurism, a. Normal bone tissue; 6. Bone tissue deprived 

 of its earthy salts and breaking up into fibrillae, 3^. 



scope, Ave may satisfy ourselves that the decalcified bone tissue 

 passes directly into fibrillar connective tissue. I have convinced 

 myself, by the examination of an exquisite specimen in the 

 Pathological Museum at Giessen, that capsular membranes of 

 true connective tissue are developed in the interior of bones 

 around centres of softening in osteomalacia, by a metamorphosis 

 exactly similar to this. Within these capsules the medullaiy 

 tissue, transformed into a reddish pulp, passes by insensible gra- 

 dations into a thin, colourless serum (cystoid degeneration of 

 bone). 



§ 42. The facts in the preceding section, drawn from the 

 morbid anatomy of atrophic changes in bone and cartilage, com- 

 prise what little we know of the visible phenomena of softening 

 in intercellular substances generally. They consist for the most 

 part of simple tumefaction with obliteration of the old forms. 

 We are far more thoroughly acquainted with the new forms 

 which result from the presence of mucus in the various organs 

 and tissues. 



Mucus is capable of great increase in bulk by imbibition ; 

 the smallest quantities of it suffice to saturate a relatively 

 large amount of water. Such saturated solutions vary in con- 

 sistency from a viscid jelly to a glutinous synovia, which can be 

 drawn out in threads. 



