OF VERTEBRAL COLUMN 



191 



Each disc is composed of two portions — a circumferential laminar, and a 

 central pulpy portion; the former tightly surrounds and braces in the latter, and 

 forms somewhat more than half the disc. The laminar portion consists of alter- 

 nating layers of fibrous tissue and fibro-cartilage; the component fibres of these layers 



Fig. 199. — Horizontal Section through an Intervertebral Disc and the 



corresponding kibs. 



Anterior costo-central 

 or stellate ligament 



Costo-central synovial 

 aac 



Middle costo-trans 

 verse ligament 



Laminar poirtion of inter- 

 vertebral disc 



Central pulpy portion of inter- 

 vertebral disc 



Costo-transverse synovial aac 



Posterior costo-transverse 

 ligament 



Fig. 200.— The Anterior Common Ligament of the Spine, the Stellate, the Inter- 

 articular, and the superior costo-transverse ligaments. 



The interartieular 

 ligament 



The superior or anterior 

 costo-transverse ligaments 



— The stellate ligament 



are firmly connected with two vertebrae, those of one passing obliquely down and 

 to the right, those of the next down and to the left, making an X-shaped arrange- 

 ment of the alternate lavers. A few of the superficial lamellae project beyond the 

 edges of the bodies, their fibres being connected with the edges of the anterior and 



