ON THE ANTISEPTIC SYSTEM 



95 



of pocket in the living tissues, which, when scraped with the edge of a knife, 

 bled even at the very margin of the cavity. This appearance showed that the 

 deeper portions of the crust itself had been converted into living tissue. Eor 

 cavities formed during the process of aggregation, like those with clear liquid 

 contents in a Gruyere cheese, occur in the grumous mass which results from 

 the action of carbolic acid upon blood ; and that which I had exposed had 

 evidently been one of these, though its walls were now alive and vascular.' 

 Thus the dead, but nutritious mass, had served as a mould for the formation of 

 new tissue, the growing elements of which had replaced the materials absorbed, 

 so as to constitute a living solid of the same form. 



Hence it might have been anticipated that the hgatures of peritoneum 

 and catgut placed on the calf's carotid would, after the expiration of a month. 



Fig. 2. — The vessel seen in longitudinal section, magnified three 

 diameters. From a camera-Iucida sketch. A, the artery to the cardiac 

 side of the ligature, kept free from clot by the stream of blood through 

 the branch B. C, the coagulum filling the artery to the distal side of the 

 ligature, F, F. D, the middle and internal coats, somewhat thickened 

 and blended together within the grasp of the ligature. F, the external 

 coat continuous in structure with the organized ligature. 



be found transformed into bands of living tissue. Such was, in truth, the case, 

 as was apparent on closer examination. They had, indeed, a deceptive resem- 

 blance to their former condition, from the persistence in their substance of the 

 impurities of the original materials, the dark adventitious particles being of 

 mineral nature incapable of absorption, so that they had remained as a sort 

 of tattooing of the new structure. Nevertheless, a marked alteration in colour 

 had taken place, especially in the distal ligature, where the dirt}^ grey of the 

 softened catgut had changed to a dirty pink tint. The two pieces of catgut 

 which had been tied round the vessel at that part had become, as it were, fused 

 together into a single fleshy band, inseparably blended with the external coat 

 of the artery. The knots were nowhere discoverable, and the onl\- indication 

 of the end which had been left long at the time of the operation was the presence 

 of a black speck here and there upon a delicate thread of cellular tissue in con- 

 nexion with the vessel. The cardiac ligature was in like manner continuous 



