The fibrous system should be considered then in a general manner, that is to say, as extending itself everywhere, belonging at the same time to many organic apparatus, distinct in each by its form, but continuous in the greatest number, having everywhere communications. This manner of describing it will appear still more natural, if we consider that the periosteum, the general boundary of the different portions of this system, is itself everywhere continuous, and at the place where the articulations divide it, the fibrous capsules and the ligaments serve, as we have said, to reunite it. We understand from this use of the periosteum in relation to the fibrous system, what the advantage is of its situation upon the bones which offer it a solid support, and give the same also to the organs of which it is the boundary. ARTICLE SECOND. ORGANIZATION OF THE FIBROUS SYSTEM. In the midst of the varieties of form that we have just examined, the general organization of the fibrous organs is always nearly the same. I shall now consider this organization; I shall treat elsewhere of the varieties it experiences in each part. It arises from the union of a peculiar texture and of the vascular, cellular systems, &c. I. _Of the Texture peculiar to the Organization of the Fibrous System._ Every fibrous organ has for a base a fibre of a peculiar nature; hard, but slightly elastic, insensible, scarcely at all contractile, sometimes in juxta-position and parallel to each other, as in the tendons and the ligaments, sometimes crossed in various directions, as in the membranes, the capsules, the fibrous sheaths, &c. but everywhere the same, everywhere of a white or greyish colour, and of a remarkable resistance. This resistance of the fibrous texture enables all the organs that it composes to support the greatest efforts. Thus these organs are all destined to uses which require this faculty in them. The ligaments forcibly retain the articular surfaces in their proper relation. The aponeuroses confine the muscles and oppose their displacement. The tendons constantly exposed to the contraction of these organs, are at every instant placed between the strong power that they represent and the more or less considerable resistance situated at the extremity of the muscles, &c. Such is this resistance, that it is often greater than that of the bones themselves. We know that by muscular efforts alone, the patella, the olecranon process and the os calcis are sometimes broken; now this could not happen, if the extensor tendons, which corresponded to these different bones, were of a texture that could be more easily torn.