118 SUPPURATION. 



pression of a reckless expenditure of capital, where a judiciou& 

 employment of the interest would have yielded far better results. 

 I say emphatically, hetter results, for the cicatricial tissue is far 

 from being a connective tissue of ideally high quality. On the 

 contrary, its fibres are stiff, inelastic, and misshapen ; its cells 

 are represented by shrunken staff-shaped nuclei, and its vital 

 capacity is proportionately reduced. Moreover, the cicatricial 

 tissue exhibits an extreme proneness to contract in all its dimen- 

 sions. This phenomenon, which is, on the whole, a very mis- 

 chievous one, is termed induration, sclerosis, or contraction ; its 

 occurrence is anticipated with such certainty, that upon it is 

 founded the operation for entropion, by which an inverted eyelid 

 is turned outwards. It need hardly be said, that this general 

 diminution in bulk is a physical rather than a vital phenomenon; 

 the removal of water has a great deal to do with it ; for the 

 white, glistening tissue of a cicatrix is dry, compact, and harder 

 k) cut than any other variety of connective tissue. 



C. Suijpuration. 



§ 94. Pus is a fluid tissue. Numberless cells, the so-called 

 pus-corpuscles, are suspended in a colourless serum to which 

 they impart a greyish-white or yellowish-grey tint ; the liquor 

 pnris holds albumen, mucin, pyin, and salts in solution. The 



Pus-corpuscles, a. From a liealthily-granulatiug wound; h. 

 From an abscess in the areolar tissue ; c. The same treated 

 with dilute acetic acid ; d. From a sinus in bone (necrosis) ; 

 €. Migratory pus-corpuscles. 



cells are small and spherical, partly impregnated, partly sprinkled 

 with fine granules which, as a rule, conceal the nucleus from 

 view. On the addition of acetic acid the granules disappear, 



