Volume 1

The microscopic anatomy of the human body, in health and disease. Illustrated with numerous drawings in colour / By Arthur Hill Hassall, M.B.

  • Hassall, Arthur Hill, 1817-1894.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microscopic anatomy of the human body, in health and disease. Illustrated with numerous drawings in colour / By Arthur Hill Hassall, M.B. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    which are extended in the same line. These spaces are oval in the cornea, and round in that portion of the schlerotic where the two structures are in connection with each other.* (See Plate LXYII. fig. 3.) This arrangement was first pointed out by the authors of the “ Physiological Anatomy,” and is thus described by them. “ On the cornea proper or lamellated cornea, the thickness and strength of the cornea mainly depend. It is a peculiar modification of the white fibrous tissue, continuous with that of the schlerotic. At their line of junction, the fibres, which in the schlerotic have been densely interlaced in various di- rections, and mingled with elastic fibrous tissue, flatten out into a membraneous form, so as to follow in the main the curva- tures of the surfaces of the cornea, and to constitute a series of more than sixty lamella;, intimately united to one another by very numerous processes of similar structure, passing from one to the other, and making it impossible to trace any one lamella over even a small portion of the cornea. The result- ing areola;, which in the schlerotic are irregular, and on all sides open, are converted in the cornea into tubular spaces, which have a very singular arrangement, hitherto undescribed. They lie in superposed planes, the continuous ones of the same plane being, for the most part, parallel, but crossing * A subsequent examination of the cornea renders it necessary that the views above expressed of its structure should be modified to some extent. I find that a considerable amount of a tissue, very closely re- sembling the white fibrous tissue of the schlerotic, does enter into the construction of the cornea; in sections, however, whether treated or not with acetic acid, this tissue is scarcely to be traced, the nuclear form of fibrous tissue already described, and which is so very abundant, being alone visible, and appearing to constitute the entire of its substance. If, however, a small piece of the inner and softer part of the cornea be torn up with needles, and then examined, bundles of fibrous tissue, very analogous to those of the white fibrous form, will be plainly seen; these are of considerable diameter, reflect a greenish shade, and are, in many parts, transversely striated, each filament bearing a resemblance to a minute Conferva; they are rendered nearly, though not quite, invisible by the action of vinegar. Considered altogether, the cornea resembles very closely, in structure, a tendon, which also contains a very large quantity of a similar nuclear fibrous tissue.