378 MORBID ANATOMY OF THE SKIN. 



brought about? The cutis is a web of fasciculi of connective 

 tissue. In transverse sections these fasciculi are divided, some 

 transverselj, some longitudinally, others at every imaginable 

 angle. Now if we select a point at which a bundle of longitudinal 

 fibres happens to abut upon a bundle which has been divided at 

 right angles or obliquely (fig. 118), we find that the longitudinal 

 fibres separate to include those which are divided transversely. 



Tig. 118. 



A 



V 



Elephantiasis. Connective-tissue bundles of the cutis seen in 

 longitudinal and transverse section, a. Lymphatic spaces 

 surrounding transversely- divided bundles; &. Protoplasm, 

 at whose expense the bundles increase in length and 

 thickness. -^. 



They form a framework whose trabeculas are ingeniously inter- 

 w^oven with the fibres of the bundle which is cut across. This 

 framework however is of a much softer and more delicate con- 

 sistency than the main fibres. It refi'acts light less highly, and 

 is not so susceptible of being stained by carmine. Of course the 

 transition from the one variety to the other is extremely gradual. 

 In other w^ords, the fasciculi of connective tissue in the skin 

 affected by elephantiasis, divide at each end into a number of 

 finer and softer fibres, which make up a framework for the 

 reception of the central portions of other bundles, whose position 

 in relation to the first set, is transverse or oblique. Repeated 



