106 



THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES, BY A. ROLLETT. 



appears whiter or more yellow in comparison with the hyaline 

 variety. It is less brittle, but often cleavable in certain 

 directions. The latter circumstance enables a mechanical iso- 

 lation of the cells, on breaking up such sections of cartilage, to 

 be much more easily accomplished than in hyaline cartilage. 



The fibres of elastic or reticular cartilage (fig. 8) appear dark, 

 of unequal thickness, branched, and often intercommunicate by 

 very numerous anastomoses, thus forming a very fine but often 

 wide-meshed plexus. In their general characters and capabi- 



Fig. 8. Section of the boiled and dried auricle of the ear of Man ; a, 

 retiform cartilage ; b, connective tissue. 



lity of resisting the action of acetic acid and alkalies, they agree 

 with elastic fibres. In many instances, as in the cartilage of the 

 ear of man, and the epiglottis, it may be shown that these fibres 

 are uninterruptedly continuous with the elastic plexus of the con- 

 nective tissue investing the cartilage (Bonders). The close 

 fibrous plexus often reaches to the margin of the cavities, which 

 contain the cells of the cartilage, but frequently a homogeneous 

 capsule remains around the cartilage in the form of a clear ring, 

 whilst a considerable quantity of the matrix between the fibres 

 may remain distinguishable, and both conditions occur in close 

 proximity with one another in the same cartilage. As various 



