There are some blood vessels in the ligaments. In certain diseases of the articulations, their vascular system is developed in a very remarkable manner, and they are penetrated by a great quantity of blood; no nerve is discoverable in them.
Sometimes the ligamentary texture is changed into a matter like lard, in which every kind of fibre disappears, which rarely returns to its primitive state, and which is met with almost always in organic affections, fatal to the patient.
The ligaments unite strongly the osseous surfaces, prevent their displacement, and yet allow easy motions; a double function which they perform in virtue of a double property, of their resistance on the one part, of their softness and flexibility on the other; sometimes externally, they serve for some muscular insertions.
II. Of Ligaments with Irregular Fasciæ.
These are irregular fibres scattered here and there upon the osseous surfaces, without any order, intermixed in different directions between the sacrum and the ilium, upon the summit of the acromion, &c. We see many of these fibres, around some of the moveable articulations; much cellular texture separates them. They cannot offer any general views.
In general, the fibrous system is not as regularly organized in the ligaments as it is in the tendons, as the muscular system is in the muscles, &c. In the ligaments even with regular fasciæ, we often see fibres going in different directions, separating from the principal fascia, without any very distinct order.
FIBRO-CARTILAGINOUS SYSTEM.
The fibro-cartilaginous system is composed of different organs which anatomists have sometimes placed among the cartilages, and sometimes among the ligaments, because they in fact partake of the nature of both. I make a system of them between the two preceding ones, a knowledge of which will facilitate the understanding of this.