96 OBSERVATIONS ON LIGATURE OF ARTERIES 



in structure with the arterial wall. The short ends had disappeared ; but the 

 massive knot was represented by a soft smooth lump, which appeared at first 

 entirely homogeneous, except that it was speckled with dark particles, as before 

 referred to. On section, however, I discovered in the interior of the mass, 

 and lying close to the wall of the artery, a small residual portion of the original 

 knot, of comparatively firm consistence, and with the three-fold twisted character 

 of the cord plainly visible. It was quite distinct from the living tissue that 

 surrounded it, so that it could be readily picked out from its bed with a pair 

 of needles. A slender and irregular remnant of the noose was also found lying 

 in a sort of tubular cavity, extending about half round the vessel. 



Thus the process of organization had not yet quite invaded the entire 

 thickness of the foreign solid, and it was a happy circumstance that the thread 

 had been so constructed that the distinction between the old structure and the 

 new could be plainly recognised. 



Ample as was the evidence afforded to the naked eye of the organization 

 of these ligatures, it was satisfactory to find it confirmed in the clearest manner 

 by the microscope. A bit of the residue of the peritoneal thread, having been 

 teased out with needles in a drop of water, presented, like a fresh piece of peri- 

 toneum, the wavy bundles of parallel fibres characteristic of perfectly developed 

 fibrous tissue. Adhering to the surface of the remnant of the ligature was some 

 soft opaque material, readily washed off with water, consisting of corpuscles of 

 different forms, most of them caudate or fibro-plastic, but some spherical, though 

 not resembling those of pus ; and here and there fragments of the original 

 peritoneal tissue, affected more or less with interstitial cell-development. At 

 a short distance from the remains of the old thread, the fleshy material which 

 had been formed at its expense proved to be a most beautiful example of fibro- 

 plastic structure, the coarse fibres which mainly constituted it being composed 

 of very large elongated cells, often containing several nuclei, and presenting in 

 their course branchings and thickenings of various forms, as represented in the 

 sketch (Fig. 3). Here and there were some fibres more perfectly formed, and 

 also cells of a more rudimentary character. Again, the band which had resulted 

 from the organization of the two fine threads of catgut, which, from the smallness 

 of their bulk, had no doubt vanished early, having had longer time to perfect 

 its structure, was a comparatively well-developed form of fibrous tissue, con- 

 sisting of coarse fibres rather than of elongated cells, being thus intermediate 

 between the merely fibro-plastic material of more recent growth and the com- 

 pleted texture of the original thread. For it is to be remarked that a piece of 

 catgut exhibits under the microscope abundance of perfect fibrous tissue. A 

 more favourable period for the investigation, with a view to establishing the 



