Connective Substances. By T. E. Satterthwaite. 193 
word " cell " seems to have originated so much trouble that it 
would be desirable to avoid it entirely ; but this is impossible from 
the very general use that is made of it. It will, however, be 
restricted in what follows to the fixed corpuscles of the parts. The 
difficulty in the use of the word "cell" has been, that observers 
have frequently, as we shall see, mistaken bundles of fibres for 
corpuscles, and l3ecause they are not agreed as to what properties 
belong to a cell. It has seemed better, therefore, to offer a descrip- 
tion of appearances as they were noted during these studies from 
which we may subsequently decide whether or not they are to be 
called "cells." 
It is proper to state that, previous to Schwann's discovery, it was 
supposed that all connective tissues, by which were meant con- 
nective substances in general, were made up of fibres, though even 
this had been denied by Eeichert, who insisted that there were no 
fibres at all, but the apparent fibres were simply foldings of the 
substance. A new impetus to these questions was given by 
Yirchow,"^ who at first opposed Eeichert, maintaining that spindle- 
shaped or caudate cells did exist, and that in most cases the cells 
maintained their integrity, and consequently the connective tissue 
of early and late periods did not difi'er in general structure ; the 
cells remained the same, though they were not so easy to detect. 
He further stated that the connective tissues (connective sub- 
stances) could not be distinguished by the character of their cells, 
for in all connective tissue, round, angular, and long cells might 
occur; he also believed the cells were hollow and their processes 
hollow, constituting channels by which nutritive juices could be 
conveyed from place to place, being in fact Hke the lacunae and the 
canaliculi of bone. 
These views, however, he was obliged to modify at a later 
period. 
Henle opposed Yirchow's idea of connective-tissue corpuscles in 
certain particulars, especially in tendon tissue, and maintained that 
what seemed on cross-section to be cells, were merely spaces 
between the bundles, in which were nuclei and elastic fibres. f This 
statement was based upon a method he had of injecting the inter- 
spaces. 
The figures that were regarded by Yirchow as the stellate cells 
were, in reality, the angular spaces (Henle's spaces. Fig. 1, c) 
between three or more bundles, and they contained either a cross- 
section of an elastic fibre, or more probably, perhaps, the profile 
view of a connective-tissue corpuscle (h). As tendons contain but 
little elastic tissue, and the cross-sections of a fibre would be ex- 
tremely small, the latter view is probably the correct one. 
* 'Cellular Pathology,' 1871, pp. 69-73 and 131. 
t Miiller's ' Archiv,' 1852, p. 92. 
