52 THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES, BY A. ROLLETT. 



older and his own more recent observations, has propounded 

 the view that purulent infiltration really consists only in the 

 migration of colourless blood cells through the vascular walls 

 into the tissues. The relations thus shown to exist between 

 the blood and the tissues must, as we shall see, still be held in 

 view in discussing other questions bearing upon the connec- 

 tive tissue substances in the following pages. For this reason, 

 the three typical connecting substances connective tissue, 

 cartilage, and bone will now be separately described. The 

 consideration of the peculiar tissue of the cornea, on the other 

 hand, with dentine, and some others, will, on account of their 

 more limited and special distribution in certain organs, be 

 postponed to a later period. 



OF CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



A series of various forms of tissue must be included under 

 the term connective tissue. This name was originally given in 

 1830, by Johann M tiller,* to the tela cellulosa of the older ana- 

 tomists ; but as at that time observers-f had already convinced 

 themselves that this tissue is essentially composed of very fine 

 fibres, which may be proved to be the chief constituent of 

 tendons, ligaments, membranes, and other formed portions of 

 the organism, all these tissues, together with the tela cellulosa, 

 were included amongst those portions of the organism which 

 are composed of connective tissue. Formerly, however, the 

 description of this tissue was limited to a fibrous form of the 

 tissue, possessing very definite histological and chemical cha- 

 racters. 



This limitation has, however, been greatly extended by cus- 

 tom, and just as, in consequence of their functional agreement 

 and continuity of substance, a series of microscopically dif- 

 ferent structures are combined under a common term as 

 muscle, nerve, etc. we are on similar grounds led to a general 

 application of the term connective tissue, and to distinguish its 



* Hfindbuch der Physiologic, Bd. i., p. 410. Coblentz, 1835. 



t Jordan. For the doctrines of G. F. Treviranus (1816), H. Milne 

 Edwards (1823), see E. H. Weber's edition of Hildebraudt's Handbuch der 

 Anatomic. Braunschweig, 1830. 



