CELL-TERRITORIES AND INTERCELLULAR SUBSTANCE. 44 



animals a peculiarity which in vegetables is scarcely at 

 all to be witnessed, namely, the development of large 

 masses of so-called intercellular substance. Whilst vege- 

 table cells are usually in immediate contact with one 

 another by their external secreted layers, although in 

 such a manner that the old boundaries can still always 



FIG 6. 



be distinguished, we find in animal tissues that this 

 species of arrangement is the more rare one. In the 

 often very abundant mass of matter which lies between 

 the cells (intermediate, intercellular substance), we are 

 seldom able to perceive at a glance, how far a given 

 part of it belongs to one or another cell ; it presents the 

 aspect of a homogeneous intermediate substance. 



According to Schwann, the intercellular substance was 

 the cytoblastema, destined for the development of new 

 cells. This I do not consider to be correct, but, on the 

 contrary, I have, by means of a series of pathological 

 observations, arrived at the conclusion that the intercel- 

 lular substance is dependent in a certain definite manner 

 upon the cells, and that it is necessary to draw bounda- 



Fig. 6. Cartilage from the epiphysis of the lower end of the humerus of a child. 

 The object was treated first with chromate of potash, and then with acetic acid. In 

 the homogeneous mass (intercellular substance) are seen, at a, cartilage-cavities 

 (Knorpelhohlen) with walls still thin (capsules), from which the cartilage-cells, pro- 

 vided with a nucleus and nucleolus, are separated by a distinct limiting membrane. 

 b. Capsules (cavities) with two cells produced by the division of previously simple 

 ones. c. Division of the capsules following the division of the cells, d. Separa- 

 tion of the divided capsules by the deposition between them of intercellular sub- 

 stance Growth of cartilage. 



