The same may be said of maceration as of the preceding phenomena. In looking at a tendon and a portion of cellular texture, who would say that the action of water would soften the first quicker than the second? the one being soft and almost fluid, and the other compact. After remaining in water three months, of the temperature of a cellar, the cellular texture of the arteries did not appear to me to have undergone any alteration. The sub-cutaneous, the sub-serous, the intermuscular textures, &c. are changed sooner, but not so soon as that of some other organs. I have kept for six months, in a glass vessel, some nerves, which as we shall see, are not altered in water; the texture which separated the fibres of these, was as firm and distinct as at first. This resistance to the action of water is less, when the cellular texture is macerated with organs that soon yield and become pulpy, than when it is exposed alone. This resistance is the more remarkable, as this texture, being very fine, is accessible at many points to the contact of the fluid. If the texture of tendons, of cartilages, of aponeuroses, of the skin, &c. was arranged in layers as fine and as much separated, I am satisfied that three or four days of maceration would be sufficient to reduce them to a mere pulp. As much may be said of ebullition; a few minutes would be sufficient to dissipate and melt into gelatine most of the white textures, if they were arranged in layers as fine as the cellular system; this, however, resists a long time; different layers are still seen between the fibres of the boiled muscles. The fat which remains in parcels among the fleshy fibres, after the boiling, would have been melted, if it had not been contained in cells which continue untouched; we can, moreover, be easily convinced of the existence of these layers in the parcels of fat. It is especially upon the texture exterior to the arteries, the excretories, &c. that the action of boiling water is longest in producing an effect.