372 WILLIAM H. COLE 



Absorption did not appear in that graft until the end of the fifth 

 day after the operation. On the sixteenth day, about one-half 

 of the eye was uncovered. Absorption then ceased. The grafts 

 which had established complete union all along their edges showed 

 absorption later than any of the others. In LN 44 ten days 

 elapsed before the appearance of absorption. On the twentieth 

 day after the operation the entire eye was exposed (fig. 12) . As will 

 be seen from the figure, which is a photograph of the living animal, 

 the graft is roughly crescent shaped. In that condition it re- 

 mained until death on the one hundred and twenty-seventh day 

 after the operation. The only change that occurred was a slight 

 proliferation of tissue around the edges of the graft. Of the 

 thirty-seven grafts which showed absorption, twenty-six had 

 established complete union. In these twenty-six cases absorp- 

 tion began on the average twelve days after the operation. In 

 the other eleven grafts, each one of which had some free place 

 along its edges, the average number of days preceding absorption 

 was five. Complete union, therefore, delays the absorption proc- 

 ess about one week. The delay is usually compensated, however, 

 in the grafts with complete union by a greater rate of absorption 

 when it does begin. Thus in LN 51, with complete union, the 

 first signs of absorption appeared on the fourteenth day. At the 

 end of the eighteenth day about one-half of the eye was exposed, 

 and absorption then stopped (fig. 18). In this case, absorption 

 continued only four days — a period shorter by nearly a week 

 than that seen in other grafts where union was incomplete. 

 There were a few grafts in which absorption began very late in 

 the adjustment period and produced a very small U-shaped area 

 not reaching the eye. It is supposed that in these cases the 

 third period, one of proliferation, began before the absorption 

 had accomplished what it would have, if proliferation had not 

 begun. 



Complete union may also cause a second type of adjustment, 

 which was shown by six transplants, LN 64, 74, 83, 86, 105, and 

 106. In these grafts a circular area near the center gradually 

 became thinner by absorption, and at last was perforated, thus 

 exposing the eye. In none of them were there any signs of in- 



