Commentaries on the Surgery of the War in Portugal, Spain, France, and the Netherlands / from the battle of Roliça, in 1808, to that of Waterloo, in 1815; with additions relating to those in the Crimea in 1854-55, showing the improvements made during and since that period in the great art and science of surgery on all the subjects to which they relate.

by G. J. Guthrie

In diagram No. 3, fig. 3, the organic or involuntary muscular fibers of the intestine are shown, consisting of more or less flattened bands, the fibers of which are soft, and marked with minute granules, sometimes exhibiting traces of nuclei. These purely muscular fibers are most abundant next to the inner coat of the artery, and diminish in number as they approach the outer layer, their place being occupied by firmer and more elastic fibers of a yellow color, seen collectively in the circular diagram, as line 4, and separately in diagram 3, fig. 4, and in diagram 4.

No. 3.

No. 4.

The involuntary muscular fibers of an artery do not always form a continuous layer; they are often smaller than those found in the intestines, bladder, and uterus, and occur as fusiform cells, detached from each other, and having a large, club-shaped nucleus, as shown at fig. 6 in diagram 3.

The voluntary muscular fibers differ from the involuntary, in having cylindrical fibers of much larger size, with transverse and longitudinal markings, unlike the flattened fibers of less size of the involuntary muscles, which have also a faintly granular appearance, instead of the more determined transverse and longitudinal lines of the voluntary muscles.

The outer or elastic layer of the ancient middle coat, represented by line 4 in the circular diagram, contains muscular fibers, but it is formed principally of strong, elastic fibers difficult of separation, and, when torn across, have curled extremities, as shown in the diagram marked 4, differing only in size from those found in the ligaments of the spine, and in the ligamentum nuchæ of quadrupeds, as shown in the separate diagram marked 4.

The external coat of an artery, divided also into two layers, is shown on the circular diagram by lines 5 and 6. These two layers are composed of the yellow elastic fibers last noticed, and another set of fibers, white in color and inelastic in structure, arranged in various directions; the inner layer predominating in yellow elastic, the outer layer in white inelastic fibers, constituting a firm investment to all the other layers of which the artery is composed. The white inelastic fibers are shown in diagram No. 3, fig. 5, with a yellow elastic fiber curling round them. The constant crossing and recrossing of these two sets of fibers form certain spaces, which, when not in a compact form, become real spaces, meshes, or areolæ, constituting what is now called areolar tissue, rather than the cellular of the older anatomists, from the circumstance that the areolæ communicate, and that perfect cells in any tissue do not. These elements of areolar tissue can be readily distinguished by the action of acetic acid, under which reagent the white fibers will almost disappear, leaving only a slight trace of fibers containing oval nuclei, as seen and marked in diagram 3, fig. 5. It is seen when unraveled in b, diagram 5.

No. 5.