N- IV. 



THE PROCESS OF ULCERATION IN ARTICULAR 

 CARTILAGES, 



The question as to the vascularity of cartilages cannot now 

 excite much interest, when we know that all the textures are in 

 themselves destitute of blood-vessels, which are accessary parts, 

 carriers of nourishment, not active agents in its deposition. 

 We do not consider cartilage as a texture into which no blood- 

 vessels pass, but only as less vascular than some of the others. 

 In a large mass of cartilage, as in those of the bulky mammals, 

 or in the thick cartilages of the foetal skeleton, canals containing 

 blood-vessels are found here and there ; but in the thin arti- 

 cular cartilages of the adult human subject few or no vessels 

 can be detected. 



It is evident, therefore, that in the process of ulceration in car- 

 tilage, it cannot be the usual blood-vessels of the part which are 

 the active agents.* Still less likely is it, that lymphatics, the 

 existence of which has never been asserted in this texture, are the 

 absorbing instruments. 



If a thin section, at right angles, be made through the articular 

 cartilage of a joint, at any part where it is covered by gelatinous 

 membrane in scrofulous disease, or by false membrane in simple 

 inflammatory condition of the joint, and if this section be exa- 

 mined, it will be found to present the following appearances. 



* See Mr. Aston Key's Paper in the London Med. Chir. Trans., Vol. xviii., Part, I., 

 " On the Ukeratire Process in Joints" 



