XIII. Researches, tending to prove the non-vascularity and the peculiar uniform mode of organization and nutrition of certain animal tissues, viz. articular cartilage, and the cartilage of the different classes of fibro-cartilage; the cornea, the crystalline lens, and the vitreous humour; and the epidermoid appendages

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Abstract
It is now generally acknowledged that the process of nutrition in most animal tissues consists in changes undergone by the nutrient liquor sanguinis, which has exuded into them through the coats of the capillaries ramifying throughout them. The vessels themselves vary in number in different structures: in muscle, the capillaries are very numerous, and the spaces between them very small; whilst in tendon and ligament, on the other hand, the latter are comparatively large; but in all structures, whatever may be the degree of their vascularity, the tissue the furthest removed from the vessel is nourished equally well with that which is in immediate contact with it. In all vascular structures, therefore, there is of necessity a considerable extent of tissue which is nourished without being in contact with blood-vessels, and the know­ledge of this fact forms a necessary introduction to the study of the process of nutri­tion in those organs, into which, whilst in a healthy state, anatomists have never succeeded in tracing blood-vessels. The organized tissues, constituting such non-vascular organs, may be divided into three classes: The first , comprehending articular cartilage, and the cartilage of the different classes of fibro-cartilage; The second , the cornea, the crystalline lens, and the vitreous humour; The third , the epidermoid appendages, viz. the epithelium, the epidermis, nails and claws, hoofs, hair and bristles, feathers, horn, and teeth.

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