Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of human pathology / by Herbert Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![During three days, the only change which ensues is the absorption of some of the extravasated blood. The ecchy- mosis at the completion of this period is paler than at first. The blood effused does not contribute to the re- union of the broken bone. When there is much extra- vasation, the restorative process, instead of being accele- rated, is retarded; the fracture does not stiffen as early as otherwise. 2. The second period extends from the fourth to the tenth or twelfth day. Under ordinary circumstances, on the fourth day a change supervenes, which bears some resemblance to inflammation. The parts adjacent to the fracture become more vascular, and are infiltrated with a gelatinous lymph. The same substance is diffused, as an adhesive glue, around and between the fractured extremi- ties. Sometimes the matter so effused is gelatinous; at other times it has the common appearance of coagulable lymph. The effusion produces a sensible thickening around the fracture. The motion at the fracture is less free. Con- solidation appears to have begun. But as yet the change is limited to a general infiltration of the parts adjacent to the fracture : all the textures so situated appear involved in this infiltration: it may be conjectured, however, that the filamentous tissue is its more especial seat. [c. 1*.] 3. The third period extends from the tenth or twelfth day to the twentieth or twenty-first. The general tumefac- tion of the soft parts adjoining the fracture now subsides : the different textures become again distinct. They appear gra- dually to disengage themselves from the diffused thickening in which they were at first involved; so that they are eventually disposed on the outside of a circumscribed and dense mass or capsule, which immediately contains the broken ends of the bone: that mass is termed the provi- sional callus. It is of a whitish colour, and has the firmness and elasticity of cartilage, of which nature no doubt it is. The parts which were involved in the first general thick- ening are not indeed as yet so completely extricated from it, but that the nerves and tendons often lie in grooves, or B 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21066735_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
