The vital activity is much greater in the fibrous, than in the osseous and cartilaginous systems. This is proved very evidently, 1st, by the degree of animal sensibility which we have just observed in it, and which is foreign to the other two systems; 2d, by the much greater disposition of this system to become the seat of pains more or less frequent, and especially of inflammation, &c.; 3d, by the much more acute character that this affection has in it, as we see in acute rheumatism, which principally affects the fibrous parts of the great articulations of the axilla, the hip, the knee, the elbow, &c. the aponeurotic part of muscles, &c.; 4th, moreover, by the great mobility of rheumatic pains, which go with astonishing quickness from one place to another, which consequently suppose a great quickness in the alteration of the vital forces of the different parts of this system; 5th, by the greater rapidity of its cicatrization; thus by laying bare fractures made for the purpose in animals, I have constantly observed that the fleshy granulations coming from the periosteum and the medullary organ, are all formed, whilst those furnished by the bone itself have hardly commenced. I would observe in regard to this cicatrization, that the parts of the fibrous system in which the greatest number of blood vessels enter, as the periosteum, the fibrous membranes, the capsules, &c. are the most capable of this phenomenon, which takes place with much more difficulty in those where little or scarcely any blood goes, as in the tendons, the ends of which are very slow in uniting; 6th, we may finally be convinced of the difference of vitality of the fibrous system and that of the preceding ones, by the progress of an exostosis compared with that of periostosis, or a swelling of the dura-mater, &c. Yet there is still in respect to the vitality a remarkable slowness in this system. We see it especially in certain affections of the limbs, in which gangrene takes place, and makes, like the inflammation that precedes it, rapid progress in the cellular texture, the muscles, &c. whilst that, as I have said, the tendons that have been laid bare do not alter until some time after, and are remarkable for their whiteness in the midst of the general blackness or lividity.