Exposed to maceration in a moderate temperature, the fibrous texture remains a long time without undergoing any alteration; it preserves its size, form and density; gradually this last diminishes; the texture softens; but it does not dilate and swell up; its fibres can then be separated from each other; we see distinctly between them the cellular texture that unites them. Finally at the end of a very long time, they become changed into a soft, whitish pulp, which appears to be homogeneous. All the fibrous organs do not soften equally quick in this way. The tendons are the first to yield to maceration. Then come the aponeuroses; among these, those which are formed by the expansion of a tendon, soften quicker than those destined to cover the limbs, as the fascia lata, for example. The fibrous membranes, the capsules and the sheaths of the same nature are more resisting. Finally the ligaments yield the slowest to the action of water which tends to soften them; yet when they come originally from a tendon, as the inferior ligament of the patella, they are more easily macerated. I have made comparatively, experiments upon all these organs; they give the results that I have stated. Every fibrous organ plunged into boiling water, or exposed to great heat, crisps and contracts like most of the other animal textures; it diminishes in size, hence it is more solid; it becomes elastic which it is not in the natural state, and afterwards it ceases to be so when it becomes softer before passing into the gelatinous state. By placing all the parts of this system at the same time in water which is made gradually to boil, we see that this softening comes upon all at the same degree, and with nearly the same force. This force, which tends then to make the fibres of this system contract is very considerable; it is sufficient to break at the place of their attachments, those of the periosteum which it raises, by this mechanism, from all the bones that have been boiled for a length of time; to detach the interosseous ligaments, the obturator membrane, &c. when we plunge them into boiling water, with the bones to which they adhere; to contract so strongly the articular surfaces against each other, that they cannot be moved, when, surrounded with their ligaments, they have been exposed to the concentrated action of caloric.