Connective Substances. By T. E. Satterthwaite. 251 
The Development of Connective Substances. — Opportunities for 
studying this portion of the subject were given by the examination 
of different portions of the umbilical cord of an embryo of three 
months, also cicatricial tissue which had been removed from the 
face on the third day, from the fibrous alveoli of a cancer of the 
breast, and a fibrous thichening of the scalp, which developed 
rapidly from a bony tumour of the calvarium on whicJi it lay 
(Fig. 11, Plate CLIX.). In the cicatrix removed on the third 
day, plate-like cells were found measuring from yaVo to 2(joo inch 
in diameter-, and surrounded by a nearly hyaline membrane. 
The central body was about the size of a lymph corpuscle, and 
whenever fibres occurred they were arranged in parallel rows, and 
upon them were the flattened corpuscles surrounded by a hyaline 
substance. In one instance the central body was dividing. In 
examining the fibroma of the scalp, the bodies were seen to be 
plates (b), though ammonia-carmine did not show them, and it was 
not until acetic acid was used that they became granular and in 
this way apparent. The intercellular substance was seen to consist 
of flattened ribbon-like laminse tapering off* at each end. It 
seemed as if fibres ran over these corpuscles and were continuous 
with the elastic fibres, but this appearance was by no means con- 
stant, and when gold was used these plates appeared, at the end of 
twelve hours, to be irregular rhomboidal (Fig. 11, a). In the 
alveoli of a growing carcinoma, the plate-like cells were also seen, 
but the intercellular substance did not give the uniform appearance 
of fibrillation, owing perhaps to its early age. 
These specimens also afforded instructive testimony of the fact 
that there is apt to be great confusion in the use of the word 
"cell," for it may often be shown that the so-called spindle cells — 
by which are here meant some of the larger figures embraced 
under that name — are often not such at all. A good lens shows 
that the so-called spindle cell may be a thin ribbon-like portion 
of the intercellular substance that we have learned to know, upon 
which is the flattened corpuscle, itself surrounded by a more or 
less delicate investment, generally of a hyaline material. The 
gold method brings out these points in great perfection. Further 
proof in support of this statement may be gained by pressing such 
a spindle cell between the cover and the slide in the way already 
mentioned. The " nucleus," or flattened corpuscle, may then be 
made to drop off. The valuable results that follow from recog- 
nizing these points are, that they at once give us an insight into 
the structure of the so-called spindle-celled sarcomata or fibro-re- 
current tumours which are formed of a tissue very similar to some 
of the connective substances already mentioned, for in describing 
them the very same error has often been committed as in calling 
the plate-Hke cells spindle-shaped. Anyone who has examined 
