┌ ┌Fibrous Membranes. │ │Fibrous Capsules. │ │ ┌Partial. │Of a membranous │Fibrous Sheaths. └General. │ form. │ ┌Partial. │ │ ┌For covering └General. FIBROUS │ │Aponeuroses │ ORGANS. │ │ │ ┌With a broad surface. │ └ └Of Insertion│In an arch. │ └With separate fibres. │ │ ┌Tendons ┌Simple. │In the form │ └Compound. │ of fasciæ. └Ligaments ┌With regular fasciæ. └ └With irregular fasciæ. Though the numerous organs which enter into this classification, belong to very different apparatus, though they seem to be spread here and there in the economy, without holding together at all, and though all appear insulated, yet they are almost all continuous and connected; so that we may consider the fibrous system, like the vascular and cerebral nervous systems, that is to say, as having a common centre, from which all the different organs go that form its divisions. This common centre of the fibrous system appears to me to be the periosteum, not that I pretend that like the heart or the brain, it sends out radiations upon the organs that go from it, but because anatomical inspection shows us that all the fibrous organs are intimately connected with it, and by its means communicate with each other; the following observations are a proof of this. 1st. Among the fibrous membranes, that of the corpus cavernosum intermixes with the periosteum below the ischium; the dura-mater is continued with it through the foramina at the base of the brain; by uniting itself by the lamina which accompanies the optic nerve to the sclerotica, it joins to it this membrane, and thus serves as an intermediate organ for them. 2d. All the fibrous capsules above and below the articulation intermix with the periosteum. 3d. Wherever fibrous sheaths exist their fibres intermix with those of the periosteum. 4th. All the aponeuroses either of covering or insertion have a similar intermixing. 5th. Wherever the tendons are expanded, they are also confounded with this membrane. 6th. At the two extremities of the ligaments it unites also its fibres to theirs. There are none scarcely except the albuginea, the perichondrium of the larynx, the membranes of the spleen and the kidney, that form an exception to this general rule.