362 



INFLAMMA TION. 



The wound looked fresh, just as if produced but the day before ; even the 

 rust-spots from the knife were still visible. The perichondrium was thick- 

 ened and held the two severed ends of the rib cartilage. Microscopic exami- 

 nation showed enlargement of some of the corpuscles, close to the edge of the 

 wound, but no other pathological changes. 



Simultaneous Injuries of the Articular Cartilage and the Sub- 

 jacent Epiphyseal Bone. Upon boring a hole into the cartilage, and 

 penetrating the bone with the red-hot iron, a very striking phe- 

 nomenon occurred namely, a deposition of lime-salts in the car- 

 tilage, around the seat of injury. This feature, which was known 

 to Redfern,* could be demonstrated after twenty-six hours, and 

 recognized by the naked eye on the third day. The deposition of 

 lime- salts was broadest at the border of the bone, and gradually 

 became narrower toward the surface. 



Close examination revealed the lime-salts deposited in the 

 basis-substance of the cartilage, and in this situation most of the 



corpuscles had assumed an irregular, 

 jagged appearance, due to off shoots 

 arranged after the manner of a deli- 

 cate net-work. At the boundary of 

 the calcification, I met with cartilage 

 cavities, surrounded either by un- 

 changed basis-substance or by a cal- 

 cified ring, which, as a rule, broadened 

 toward the fields of general calcifica- 

 tion, and was separated from these 

 fields by coarsely granular depositions 

 of lime-salts. (See Fig. 152.) 



After decalcification of such speci- 

 mens, it was apparent that the corpus- 

 cles next to the border of calcification 

 had become, either in part or wholly, 

 transformed into homogeneous or 

 vacuoled, yellowish, shining lumps 

 viz. : had returned to a juvenile stage. 

 Beginning from the third day of 

 inflammation in the calcified portion, 

 spaces were found, which were larger and more numerous nearer 

 the bone than in other localities. These medullary spaces invari- 

 ably started from the portion adjacent to the bone-tissue. The 

 basis-substance being liquefied, the newly appearing corpuscles 



: ' Anormal Nutrition in the Articular Cartilages," London, 1850. 



FIG. 152. CALCIFIED CARTI- 

 LAGE OF A MIDDLE-SIZED 

 RABBIT, AFTER A SIMUL- 

 TANEOUS INJURY OF THE 

 ARTICULAR CARTILAGE AND 

 THE BONE. [PUBLISHED IN 

 1873.] 



P, bright, yellowish cartilage cor- 

 puscles, traversed by vacuoles ; B, 

 non-calcified basis-substance, with 

 radiating offshoots of the cartilage 

 corpuscles ; C, calcined basis-sub- 

 stance at the boundaries of the terri- 

 tories. Magnified 800 diameters. 



