Researches tending to prove the non-vascularity and the peculiar uniform mode of organization and nutrition of certain animal tissues : viz. articular cartilage, and the cartilage of the different classes of fibro-cartilage; the cornea, the crystalline lens, and the vitreous humour; and the epidermoid appendages / by Joseph Toynbee.

  • Toynbee, Joseph, 1815-1866.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches tending to prove the non-vascularity and the peculiar uniform mode of organization and nutrition of certain animal tissues : viz. articular cartilage, and the cartilage of the different classes of fibro-cartilage; the cornea, the crystalline lens, and the vitreous humour; and the epidermoid appendages / by Joseph Toynbee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    for its circulation throughout the mass of the cartilage; their presence is especially required in this particular form of cartilaginous structure, from the great degree of density which it possesses. 1. Articular Cartilage. Articular cartilage is situated either on the rounded extremities of long bones, or on the surfaces of flat and irregular bones. The portion of bone upon which it rests, is in some instances formed by the ossification of a distinct cartilaginous epiphysis. In non-epiphysal bones, the extremity of the shaft of the bone performs the same functions with regard to the articular cartilage situated upon it, as do the epiphyses in those bones which are provided with them. There is this difference in articular cartilage, with regard to its nutrition during and after its development; that in the former state there is no positive separation of it from the cartilage which is subse- quently converted into bone, and in which its nourishing vessels are contained; whilst, in the latter state, these vessels are separated from it by an osseous lamella. The free surface of articular cartilage during, as well as after, its development, is covered by synovial membrane, to which it is attached by cellular tissue. Around every joint, from a very early period of development, there are found numerous arteries and veins, the articular vessels, by which their nutrition is effected. With respect to vascularity, the nutrition of articular cartilage during its de- velopment may be divided into two stages; viz. the early one, during which no vessels enter any of the structures of the joints; and the subsequent one, in which the cartilage of the bone on the one surface, and the synovial membrane on another, are supplied with blood-vessels. In adult age, after development is completed, the same vessels continue the process of nutrition ; those of the bone being situated in the cancelli, as before described, whilst those of the synovial membrane are considerably diminished in size. In order to illustrate the nutrition of cartilage during its earliest stage, I have made the following dissections. A. The First Stage of Development of Articular Cartilage. Dissections of Articular Cartilage during the more early periods of foetal develop- ment, before Blood-vessels enter into any of the Structures of the Joints.—a. In a foetal Calf, which measured twelve lines from the vertex of the head to the commencement of the caudal vertebrae, the rudiments of the shaft of the os femoris were wholly car- tilaginous, and measured one line in length. The corpuscles or cells of which this cartilage was composed, were large, round, and loosely connected together. mdcccxli. z