The fibrous organs have not been considered by anatomists in a general
manner; no one has yet made a system of them. Separately described with
the parts in which they are found, they cannot, in the present state of
science, present us any of those great views, so useful to the practice
of medicine, which show us each organic apparatus resulting from the
combination of different systems, to which analogous ones are found
in the other apparatus; so that though very different as it respects
their functions, these apparatus are yet subject to the same diseases,
because similar systems enter into their structure.
I presented, two years since, various general views upon the fibrous
membranes, which have opened the way; but these membranes are only a
division of the fibrous system, which must be considered here more at
length.