100 THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES, BY A. ROLLETT. 



some portions of the cartilage should be preserved which 

 were not situated between the electrodes in the first experi- 

 ment for the sake of comparison. It must be admitted that 

 a vital contraction of the cartilage cells has not been clearly 

 proved to occur so long as it has not been shown that they are 

 not liable to alterations of quiescence and activity, or, in other 

 words, do not undergo amoeboid changes of form. The effect 

 which a single induction shock produces in the cartilage cells 

 of Tritons renders it, however, highly probably that their 

 diminution is due to a contractile power. On a warmed stage an 

 alteration in the cartilage cells of Frogs and Tritons is first 

 observed when the temperature rises to 73 or 75 C. (163 

 167 Fahr.) ; the cells then become cloudy, in consequence 

 of the formation of a granular coagulum. Nothing further 

 has been remarked respecting the differences in the peculi- 

 arities of the cells of hyaline cartilage in various animals 

 besides that which we have above stated in regard to the cells 

 of the Frog and Triton. The observations made by Reitz* on 

 the cells of the tracheal cartilages excised from Rabbits, in 

 reference to the formation of cicatrices, and their behaviour 

 in inflammation of the trachea produced by caustic ammonia, 

 are well worthy of notice. In these experiments the cartilage 

 cells in the cicatricial tissue were seen to assume the form of 

 elongated fibres, and those of the irritated cartilage to become 

 mulberry-like, with numerous deep depressions, as though 

 about to divide. That wounds of cartilage heal by connective 

 tissue is an old observation.-)- 



As a general rule the appearance of the cells of hyaline carti- 

 lage agree more closely with the formerly described characters 

 of fresh cartilage from the Amphibia, the more recent they are 

 when brought under examination. 



In cartilages longer removed from the body the cell substance 

 appears cloudy and shrivelled, and more or less completely 



* Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, Band lv., p. 501. 



f See G. H. Weber on this subject in Hildebrandt's Anatomie, Band i., 

 p. 305. More recently, Redfern has published his observations on the same 

 subject. See Henle, Jahresbericht fur 1851, p. 52; alsoKlopsch, Zeitschrift 

 fur klinische Medicin, 1855. 



