90 OBSERVATIONS ON LIGATURE OF ARTERIES 



superficial trunk. This part of the sac appeared constituted by the wall of 

 the vessel, very slightly distended. The external iliac artery was considerably 

 shrunk throughout, and tapered from each end to near the middle, where it was 

 only about a twentieth of an inch in diameter. In the greater part of its length 

 the structure of the dwindled vessel could be distinctly recognised, with ad- 

 herent coagula in the interior, decolourized and otherwise altered. But at the 

 narrowest part the artery was reduced to mere fibrous tissue, constituting 

 a dense white band five-eighths of an inch long, from the middle of which was 

 seen projecting at one side a round, buff-coloured appendage about a line in 

 diameter, somewhat obscured by a trifling amount of inflammatory condensation 

 of texture in the immediate vicinity. On scratching this little body with the 

 point of a knife, I found it to be a very thin-walled capsule, containing the knot 

 of the ligature, with two tapering ends, which were shorter than the thread 

 was cut at the operation, while the noose had vanished altogether. The surface 

 of the knot also showed clear indications of having been subjected to an eroding 

 agency, similar, no doubt, to that exerted by granulations upon dead bone 

 absorbed by them.^ Besides the remnant of the ligature, the tiny capsule 

 contained a minute quantity of yellowish, semi-fxuid material, looking to the 

 naked eye like very thick pus. Under the microscope, however, pus-corpuscles 

 were seen to form but a small proportion of its constituents, which were prin- 

 cipally rounded corpuscles of smaller size, and fibro-plastic corpuscles, together 

 with some imperfect fibres and granular material. In addition to these elements 

 were some which at first puzzled me ; but which turned out to be fragments 

 of silk fibre, of various lengths, and of jagged, tapering, or otherwise irregular 

 forms, and many of them greatly reduced in thickness, contrasting strongly 

 with the uniform bands of a fresh piece of silk from the same reel that had 

 furnished the ligature (Fig. i). 



Mingled with the puriform fluid were also some delicate filaments of silk, 

 visible without the microscope ; and these seemed to retain their natural elas- 

 ticity. Nor was there anything about the more minute pieces into which the 

 fibres had been so strangely chopped up, to indicate that they were undergoing 

 a process of solution or softening by the fluid that soaked the thread. They 

 had rather the appearance of having been superficially nibbled, so to speak ; 

 confirming the impression conveyed by the naked-eye characters of the knot, 

 that the silk had been eroded by the absorbing action of the surrounding parts. 

 Indeed, considering the organic origin of silk, the remarkable thing seems to be, 

 not that it should be absorbed by the living tissues, but that it should resist 

 their influence so long. 



^ See Lancet, March 23, 1867 (p. 16 of this volume). 



