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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![salutary process is immediately commenced, which compre- hends three objects. The first is, the separation of the dead part, or sequestrum; the second, the formation of a tempo- rary shell of bone, to serve while the separation of the se- questrum is in progress; the third, the final restoration of the limb by the conversion of the temporary shell into per- fect bone. The two first changes proceed simultaneously, and are the direct results of the same cause,—the irritation, namely, which the presence of the dead bone occasions. The detachment of the sequestrum is effected partly by the absorption of the contiguous layer of living substance:— this is proved by the entireness of great part of the outer surface of a sequestrum [d. 35.]; partly by the absorption of the superficies of the dead bone: — this is presumed to happen, from the excavated and honeycombed surface which part of the sequestrum usually exhibits, [d. 34.] Mr. Wilson gives a satisfactory proof, that living tissues, in contact with a dead bone, can operate its partial absorption. Adverting to the practice of transplanting teeth, he observes, that the trans- planted teeth used to adhere at first, but that they seldom remained in their new sockets more than three or four years ; several such teeth, which Mr. Wilson examined, had lost their fangs by absorption *. The temporary new bone is formed around the dead. The dead bone is an irritant to the surrounding tissues, which, while they shrink from it, thicken and give origin to a sort of callus; that ossifying, as after fracture, forms an irre- gular shell of porous bone. In this shell, holes are either left, or wrought subsequently by absorption, which commu- nicate, by means of sinuses, with the surface of the limb. Sinuses opening opposite to different points of an enlarged bone, afford strong presumptive evidence that the disease is necrosis. The sinuses and the holes in the shell of bone to which they lead, are the channels through which, in the common course of things, the sequestrum is finally to make its exit. \d. 33. d. 34. d. 35. &c.] No sooner is the sequestrum removed, than a growth from * Wilson on the^ones.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21066735_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
