314 



^ 



SEROUS ^^lEMBrvAXES. 



are or ai*e not f^■cpai•atecl from the first by a con- 

 siderable amount of free fluid. In the latter case, 

 the surfaces remaining in absolute contact 

 throughout, the recent hmph suffices as a rule to 

 produce connective tissue, i.e. adhesions, from its 

 own resources. This might well be thought para- 

 doxical, so long as this substance was held to 

 consist of fibrin only ; such an exudation, desti- 

 tute of corpuscular elements, must necessarily 

 have been considered incapable of undergoing 

 organisation. We know now that fibrin is only 

 one of the constituents of the inflammatory lymph. 

 It forms a spongy framework (fig. 101) in whose 

 innumerable pores the young cells, multiplied it 

 may be by fission, are contained (fig. 101, e). 

 These young cells are not so closely packed as to 

 justify us in giving the name of embryonic tissue 

 to the material which occupies the interstices of 

 the fibrinous network ; it may be compared more 

 aptly to mucous tissue, in that a certain quantity 

 of a homogeneous, transparent intercellular sub- 

 stance holds the cells asunder. But there is not 

 a shadow of doubt that this material passes directly 

 into connective tissue, that blood-vessels are de- 

 veloped in its substance, and permeate it — in a 

 w^ordj that it is physiologically equivalent to em- 

 bryonic tissue. We may observe how^ the cells 

 which were originally round, become spindle- 

 shaped ; how their processes come in contact with 

 each other and are fused together ; and how^ that, 

 no sooner is a greater resemblance, even in out- 

 ward feature, established between this and the 

 well-knovrn forms of connective tissue (particu- 

 larly inflammatory spindle-cell tissue, § 93), than 

 the second act in the process of organisation, the 

 development of vessels, sets in. There is no better 

 opportunity than this, of studying the histological 

 course of the secondary and tertiary modes of 

 vascularisation. 



The specimens (figs. 102 and 103) w^ere taken 



