INFLAMMATORY PRODUCTS. 117 



a fact wliicli is certainly very enigmatical, viz. that even parts 

 which have been com])letely separated from the parent organism 

 znay reunite with it, provided they are stitched on early enough. 

 For us, the interest of his discovery lies first in the proof which 

 it affords that the elements foi-ming the walls of those vessels 

 from which new capillaries are about to sprout have their cohesion 

 relaxed in a definite way ; and secondly, in the fact that his views 

 corroborate the histological significance of the blood-vessels as 

 "intercellular," not '^intracellular" canals. 



The last act in the process of repair by first intention, is the 

 transformation of that portion of embryonic tissue which is not 

 ■employed in the construction of vessels, into fibrous connective 

 tissue. The cells first grow spindle-shaped, just as they 

 do in the normal course of development ; but, owing to their 

 immense number, and the close Avay in which they are 

 packed, this metamorphosis into spindle-cells gives rise to an 

 entirely new variety of tissue — the sjnndle-cell tissue. This term 

 denotes a texture wholly made up of parallel rows of spindle- 

 shaped cells, which are held together by the dovetailing of their 

 pointed ends. The spindle-cell tissue forms as a rule cylin- 

 drical or slightly flattened bundles, which interlace like the 

 bundles of connective tissue. The only question is whether the 

 protoplasmic substance of the spindle-cells undergoes direct 

 transformation into gelatin-yielding fibres, or whether we are 

 to assume with Rollett that the fibres are coined out of the 

 intercellular substance. My own observations lead me to con- 

 clude that when cicatricial tissue is formed from spindle-cell 

 tissue, the greater part of the body of the cell is immediately 

 converted into the substance of the fibre. After a certain time, 

 althouo-h the nature of the tissue is still recoo-nisable in fine 

 sections, it becomes impossible to isolate its component spindle- 

 cells by teasing with needles ; it tends rather to break up into 

 stiff", fibrous fragments of irregular outline ; and these, as is 

 proved by their contained nuclei, are made up of cells which 

 have become fused together. This phenomenon can only be 

 explained on my view of the process. The fibrous bands of the 

 cicatricial tissue are not merely the direct successors, in a 

 general sense, but ■ the only successors, of the fasciculi of the 

 spindle-cell tissue. As contrasted w^ith the normal development 

 of areolar connective tissue, the entire process gives us the im- 



