ox THE ANTISEPTIC SYSTEM 



91 



Why it was that the parts in immediate contact with the silk should have 

 assumed so imperfect a structure is a difficult question, but one of great interest : 

 because, although that structure could not be called pus, it was certainly a very 

 near approach to it ; and it is impossible to say that we had not here an incipient 

 abscess. There can be no doubt that the presence of the thread was in some 

 way or other the cause, and I think wc can hardly be wrong in assuming that, 



Fig. I. — Constituents of the incipient abscess (?) around the remains 

 of the silk Ugature. Magnified 500 diameters. From a camera-lucida 

 sketch. A, a pus corpuscle; B. rounded corpuscles of smaller size; 

 C. fibro-plastic corpuscle with endogenous cell-development ; D. ordinary 

 tibro-plastic corpuscles ; E, irregular fragments of silk libra partiallj'' 

 absorbed ; F, a piece of fresh silk fibre introduced for comparison. 



in order to give rise to such degeneration of tissue, it must have operated as 

 a i)ersistent, if trifling, source of abnormal stimulation. Now, as putrefaction 

 is here out of the question, and as the substance of silk is not chemically stimu- 

 lating, we seem shut up to the conclusion that the thread must have occasioned 

 disturbance of a mechanical nature. Eurther, the effect in cpicstion seems to 

 be essentially connected with the disintegration of the silk. Eor in the horse's 

 carotid ^ the silk ligature, having remained unaltered during the six weeks that 



' Sec p. 65 of this volume. 



