The fibrous texture gradually softens in water, becomes yellowish, semi-transparent and finally melts in part. By boiling together all the parts of the fibrous system, I have observed that the tendons soften first, then the aponeuroses, then the membranes, fibrous capsules and sheaths, and finally the ligaments, which are, as in maceration, those that yield last. Many have already made this remark, to which I add that all do not yield equally. Those placed between the layers of the vertebræ are the most tenacious; they do not take that yellow colour, that semi-transparency, common to all the fibrous system when boiled; they remain white and tough; they appear to contain much less gelatine, and to be entirely different in their nature. Exposed to the action of the air, the fibrous system loses its whiteness by the evaporation of the fluids it contains; it acquires the horny hardening, becomes yellow, in part transparent and breaks with facility. Some days after having been dried, if replunged into water, it becomes nearly as white and soft as it was before; so that we can truly say, that its white colour is owing to water alone; this phenomenon takes place especially in the tendons. I have observed also in these last another remarkable phenomenon; it is that when they have macerated for some time, and are afterwards dried, they do not become yellow in drying, but remain of a very decided white. Without doubt the whole fibrous system would do the same. The action of sulphuric and nitric acids quickly softens the fibrous texture, and reduces it to a kind of pulp, blackish in one and yellowish in the other; at the instant we plunge this texture into the acid, it crisps and contracts as in boiling water. The fibrous texture resists in general putrefaction less than the cartilaginous; but it yields to it more slowly than the medullary, the cutaneous, the mucous, &c. In the midst of these putrid and disorganized textures in the subjects in our dissecting rooms, we find this still untouched; it finally becomes changed also. Water in which it has been macerated gives an odour less offensive than that which has been used for the maceration of most of the other systems. More digestible than the cartilages and the fibro-cartilages, the fibrous texture is less so than most of the others. The experiments of Spallanzani and Gosse prove this. It appears that it yields to the action of the digestive juices in the same order as to maceration, ebullition, &c.; that is, 1st, the tendons; 2d, the aponeuroses; 3d, the different fibrous membranes; 4th, the ligaments, which are the most indigestible. I would observe however that when boiling has once softened the fibrous texture, it is all digested nearly alike. Thus the cartilages are as easy, and even more so, of digestion, than the tendons, when they have become gelatinous, as Spallanzani proved upon himself, though when raw they are much more indigestible.