Anormal nutrition in the human articular cartilages, with experimental researches on the lower animals / by P. Redfern.

  • Redfern, Peter, 1821-1912.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anormal nutrition in the human articular cartilages, with experimental researches on the lower animals / by P. Redfern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as has been before stated. It becomes a question, therefore, whether there be any real perichondrial membrane perfectly distinct from the transformed superficial layers of the cartilage % or whether, as there is a great difference in the external part of the perichondrium and the deepest perichondrial layers of the cartilage, the former texture derives its origin from the latter by nutritive changes which affect t the cartilage during the whole of life % The solution of this question is of the utmost importance in physiology and pathology, as it affects the general inquiry, whether textures are as distinct from each other as they are usually considered % and whether any one texture is capable of being absolutely transformed into another, which has hitherto been considered perfectly distinct. If, however, it can be shown that the structure of articular cartilages, in which Henle states that he has never been able to find a fibre, is readily converti¬ ble into fibrous tissue ; and if articular cartilages, generally believed by physiologists to be incapable of ossification, can be demonstrated in different stages of calcification through their entire thickness, a great part of the difficulty in believing in the possibility of conversion of cellular cartilage into fibrous perichondrium will be removed. The transformation of articular cartilages into fibrous membrane in the human subject has been already shown in the foregoing pages, and the strongest confirmation of the statements previously made on this head will now be given, in the fact, that whenever the articular or other cartilages of animals are subjected to con¬ siderable injury, the process of conversion of the adjacent unin¬ jured cartilage into fibrous texture commences instantly to heal up the breach. Moreover, the connection of the superficial layers of the cartilage with the formation of the perichondrial fibrous tissue, is much more evidently shown in disease, when the texture of the car¬ tilage becomes opened out, and the relation of its elements to the fi¬ bres of the perichondrium can be more satisfactorily examined. The characters of the healthy costal cartilage of the dog are as follows:—Immediately under the perichondrium it consists of num¬ bers of elongated cells, which lie so closely applied to each other, that the whole texture appears to be made up of them, or a few fibres may be seen in some places between the cells; a little deeper, similar cells, a little greater in width, lie, further separated from each other in a hyaline substance; whilst still deeper in the cartilage, the cells are yet further separated, much larger, rounded, and arranged in groups imbedded in hyaline substance. The average size of the superficial cells is jxVo^ of an inch long, by yxoo^1 or g-f^gth kroat4 and some of them contain a small nucleus or a few indistinct gran¬ ules, whilst in many, neither nucleus nor granules can be perceived —(Fig. XLIII.) The cells in the deeper parts are very large, al¬ ways containing a distinct nucleus, and occasionally a nucleolus. They are of various sizes, the largest being in the deepest parts, and very generally changed by the occurrence of ossification in the centre of the cartilage, even in very young animals.