chap, i.) THE SCALP. 3 



to be presently given, be fairly called the dangerous 

 area of the scalp (Fig. 1, d). The mobility of the 

 scalp depends entirely upon the laxity of this layer of 

 tissue. In extensive scalp wounds, when a part of 

 the scalp is separated in the form of a large flap, a 

 flap that may hang down and cover half the face, it 

 is the very looseness of this tissue that permits such 

 separation. In the Indian process of scalping, a 

 taste that is becoming one of the past, the much- 

 prized piece of skin is torn from the skull through 

 this lax area of connective tissue, and, were there no 

 such area, scalping would be an operation requiring 

 some time and art. 



The exposure of the skull in a post-mortem exami- 

 nation is effected by peeling off the scalp along 

 this layer of loose tissue, and it is remarkable with 

 what ease the skull can bo exposed by this mano3uvre. 

 Sutures may be safely applied to adjust scalp 

 wounds, provided they are not too long retained. 

 They probably include the aponeurosis, and if long 

 retained may act as setons and set up suppuration, 

 which may find its way into the loose layer beneath 

 the aponeurosis. 



Wounds of the scalp never gape, unless 

 the wound has involved the scalp muscle or its 

 aponeurosis. When this structure has been divided, 

 the lax layer beyond permits of great separation of 

 the edges of even the simplest wound. In uncompli- 

 cated incised wounds, the amount of gaping of the 

 cut depends upon the action of the occipito-frontalis 

 muscle. Those wounds gape the most that are made 

 across the muscle itself, and that are transverse to the 

 direction of its fibres, while those show the least 

 separation that involve the aponeurosis and are made 

 in an antero-posterior direction. The mobility of the 

 scalp is more marked in the young than in the old. 

 A. case recorded by Agnew serves in a strange degree 



