General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
I so call the cellular texture which is found in the neighbourhood of
the spine, and in the vertebral canal.
In the cavity of this canal, there is but very little of it. Between
the tunica arachnoides and the medulla oblongata, between the nervous
elongations that go from the last, and the sheaths of the arachnoides
that accompany them, we see some filaments that follow the course of
the vessels, and contribute to the formation of the pia mater. There
is none of this texture between the arachnoides and dura mater. Below
this, between it and the vertebral canal, in the places where it does
not adhere, there is more of it, especially below, where it is very
loose, and always covered with a fluid that is often reddish.
On the outside of the spine, we see, behind, many muscles and but
little cellular texture in proportion; thus, depositions in this part
are much more rare and much less liable to spread than elsewhere, a
circumstance which arises also from this, that the muscles being very
compact in the vertebral canals, keep in a state of depression the
cellular texture that separates them.
This texture is on the contrary very abundant along the whole course
of the anterior part of the spine, in the neck, where it accompanies
the carotids, in the thorax and abdomen, where it follows the course of
the aorta, the great trunks which go from it, the vena cava, azygos,
&c. There is no part of the animal economy, more frequently exposed to
different collections of pus, than this. Nothing is more common than
to see depositions that are formed at the anterior part of the thorax
and abdomen, projecting at the groin by a channel which we discover
by the examination of bodies. It is principally by these cellular
communications, and by those which are beneath the integuments, that
the superior parts correspond with the inferior, and vice versa.
_Cervical cellular texture._
The neck, which is very muscular, has much cellular texture,
besides that which belongs to the vertebral column. It is
especially in the lateral parts, where the lymphatic glands are
situated, that this texture is remarkable. In the space between the
sterno-cleido-mastoideus and trapezius muscles, where the brachial
nerves arise, and where the vessels pass that go from the thorax, there
is a great quantity of it. It communicates with that of the thorax, by
the large opening that is found at the superior part of this cavity;
hence it happens, that when the cells of the lungs are ruptured, the
escaped air occupies first the chest and then the neck, and hence also
the facility with which we produce the same phenomenon by forcing air
beneath the pleura of a dead body, &c.
The cellular texture of the neck communicates also with that of the
superior extremities above and below the clavicle. Hence why the neck
and consequently the chest, are filled with air, water, and other
fluids that are forced into the sub-cutaneous and intermuscular texture
of these extremities.
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