14 THE TONER LECTURES. 



take place in open wounds. When inflammation exists, tliere- 

 fore, tliis mode of development is always found, and it appears 

 to be a less perfect process of healing than that accomplished 

 through nucleated blaslema, a material which Sir James Paget 

 proposed to distinguish by tiie name of 7-eparative lymph. In 

 this material small oval and elongated nuclei are formed, which 

 are easily rendered distinct by acetic acid, but the large nucle- 

 ated cells do not appear. The ultimate disposition of these 

 nuclei is uncertain ; Sir James Paget thinks they shrivel and 

 disappear; but Henle describes them as developing into fibres, 

 and with this view I am disposed to agree, from my own obser- 

 vation in numerous experiments which I have performed on 

 rabbits.' 



The nucleated blastema is the material from M'hich bonds of 

 connection are formed after subcutaneous operations; divided 

 tendons and muscles are thus connected. The process of 

 development through nucleated hlaHtema is found proceeding 

 in all subcutaneous operations, in proportion to the absence 

 of inflammation. When inflammation takes place in subcu- 

 taneous o[)erations, the two processes may coexist, and their 

 products mingle, but Sir James Paget observes " they bear an 

 inverse proportion to each other, and the more manifest the 

 signs of inflammation, the less the quantity of the proper 

 repai-ative material and the slower in the end the process of 

 repair." 



Having thus shown that the reparative j^rocess after subcu- 

 taneous operations, proceeds more perfectly than that after 

 open wounds, in the formation of a connecting bond of union 

 between tlie divided structure, and to the perfect regeneration 

 of structure where this is possible, as in tendons, bones, nerves, 

 and cellular tissue, we can understand the importanee attached 



' See Trans. Path. Soc, vol. vi., for account of " a series of experi, 

 ments illustrating the reparative process in the tendons of rabbits aftew 

 divisioa by subcutaneous and open wounds, read May 1, 1855 ; and also 

 a work " On the licparative Prcjcess in Human Tendons," by W. Adams, 

 p. 87. J. Churchill, Loudon, 18G0. 



