ARTICLE THIRD. PROPERTIES OF THE GLANDULAR SYSTEM. I. _Properties of Texture._ These properties are in general very inconsiderable in this system, which appears to me to be particularly owing to its non-fibrous texture. In fact, in order to be elongated and afterwards contracted and preserve their integrity, it is necessary that the particles of an organ should possess a certain degree of adhesion and cohesion; now, it is to the fibre that especially belongs this double attribute. Observe also that the glandular system is subjected to much less frequent causes of distension and contraction, than the systems with distinct fibres. It is scarcely ever found distended except when purulent deposits, serous, steatomatous collections, &c. are formed in its interior, as often happens in the middle of the liver, kidney, &c.; now in these cases it does not yield like the skin, the muscles, &c.; its particles are separated; it is the cellular texture with which they are surrounded that is uniformly dilated; the glandular texture is even soon destroyed. It is very evident when the collections are formed near the convexity of the glands; if the tumour be at all large the texture of the organ disappears; there remains only a cellular and membranous cyst. Hydatids so frequent on the exterior of the kidneys present us with examples of it. If it is in the middle of the gland that the cyst is formed, the destruction also takes place, but it is much less evident. A strong proof of the small degree of extensibility of the glands, is what takes place in the liver in dead bodies. I have said above that it is more or less loaded with blood, according as the system with black blood had been more or less embarrassed in the last moments. Now whatever may be the quantity of blood it contains, its size remains nearly the same; only its texture is more or less compressed by the vessels, whilst on the contrary the greater or less size of the lungs, which is very apparent, always indicates its state of fulness or vacuity. It is probable even that it is this difference which has made all physicians neglect the infinitely various states of engorgement in which the liver may be found at death, whilst they have had a particular regard to the varieties of the lungs. The veins of the kidneys, further from the heart, are less exposed than those of the liver to the reflux that takes place in the last moments in which the black blood is obstructed in the lungs. Yet it however takes place, and we see very great varieties in the quantity of blood in the great renal vessels, a quantity independent of that which is constantly found in the organ, and which, as I have said, is very considerable. Now the size of the kidney hardly corresponds to these varieties, because its extensibility is almost nothing.