IN ARTICULAR CARTILAGES. 19 



nucleated particles always exists between the loops of capillaries 

 and the ulcerated surface. 



The cartilage, where it is not covered by the false membrane, 

 is unchanged in structure. The membrane generally adheres 

 with some firmness to the ulcerating surface ; in other instances 

 it is loosely applied to it; but in all, the latter is accurately 

 moulded to the former. 



In scrofulous disease of the cancellated texture of the heads of 

 bones, or in cases where the joint only is affected, but to the 

 extent of total destruction of the cartilage over part or the whole 

 of its extent, the latter is, during the progress of the ulceration, 

 attacked from its attached surface. Nipple-shaped processes of 

 vascular cellular texture pass from the bone into the attached sur- 

 face of the cartilage, the latter undergoing the change already 

 described. The processes from the two surfaces may thus meet 

 half way in the substance of the cartilage, or they may pass from 

 the attached, and project through a sound portion of the surface 

 of the cartilage, like little vascular nipples or granulations. The 

 cartilage may thus be riddled, or it may be broken up into scales 

 of varying size and thickness, or it may be undermined for a 

 greater or less extent, or be thrown into the fluid of the cavity 

 of the joint in small detached portions, or it may entirely 

 disappear. 



On the principles already laid down, if absorbents exist, as we 

 have reason to believe they do in the false membrane, neither 

 they nor the veins are to be considered as the active or imme- 

 diate agents in the absorption of the cartilage. They certainly 

 are not so in the absorption of the walls of the corpuscules, and 

 this, as well as the analogy of similar processes, gives weight to 

 the opinion to which I have come, that they are not the imme- 

 diate instruments in the absorption of the free surface. The 

 cells of new formation appear to be the immediate agents in this 

 action. They absorb into their substance the hyaline matter of 

 the cartilage, the latter probably not being removed at once from 

 the spot, but merely converted into soft cellular texture ; the 

 jss being one of transformation rather than removal. 



J. G. 



