128 THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES, BY A. ROLLETT. 



observations which had been made in ossifying cartilage.* 

 This was especially the case in Germany, Kollikerf having 

 employed rachitic bone as a microscopic object where the 

 mode of conversion of cartilage corpuscles into bone corpuscles, 

 described by Schwann as being analogous to the formation 

 of dotted vegetable cells, may really be distinctly followed ; 

 and recently LieberkiihnJ has investigated the normal ossifi- 

 cation of cartilage in a series of papers, and has sought to 

 represent the principal facts in accordance with the statements 

 above made in regard to the transformation of cartilage into 

 bone. Another mode, which has proved to be the correct one, 

 notwithstanding that only afew were inclined to accept it, was 

 proposed by H. Muller|| in 1858. It was further pursued by other 

 observers,1F and has led to the establishment of the essential facts 

 to be now mentioned regarding the ossification of cartilage. 



The ossification of those parts of the skeleton which are 

 originally cartilaginous, proceeds, as is well known, from certain 

 points, called points or centres of ossification. In these there 

 appear in the first instance tubes (cartilage canals) filled with 

 a soft cellular mass, into which blood-vessels, springing from 

 the perichondrium, may be traced (medulla of cartilage). These 

 canals lead to those parts where, in consequence of the depo- 

 sition of the salts of lime in the matrix of the cartilage, the 

 white appearance and firm consistence of bone are first obser- 

 vable, and form large irregularly dilated spaces, which are also 



* See for the historical details of the subject the paper by H. Miiller 

 in the Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, Band ix., p. 147, et seq. 



f Mittheil. der Zurich Naturforsch. GeselL, 1847, Nos. 11 and 12 ; and 

 Froriep's Notizen, 1848, p. 120. 



t Reichert and Du Bois' Archiv, 1862, p. 702 ; 1863, p. 614 ; 1864, p. 

 598 ; 1865, p. 404. 



E. H. Weber, Ausg. v. Hildebrandt's Anatomie, 1830, p. 334, u. d. f. 

 Shaipey, Quain's Anatomy, fifth edition. Bruch, Denkschr. d. schweiz. 

 Naturf. Ges., Band xi. Baur, Miiller's Archiv, 1857, p. 347. 



|| Zeitschrift filr wissenschaftliche Zoologie, Band ix., p. 145. 



5[ Gegenbaur, Jenaische Zeitschrift fiir Medicin und Naturwissenschaften, 

 1864, p. 343; 1866, pp. 54 and 206. Landois, Centralblatt fur die 

 tnedicin. Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1865, Nos. 16, 18, and 32; Zeitschrift fiir 

 wissenschafilicJie Zoologie, xvi., p. 23. Waldeyer, Ueber den Ossifications- 

 process, Archiv fiir mikroskopische Anatomie, Band i., p. 354. 



