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 CHAPTER V.

ON CARIES, THE CONDITION OF BONE ENSUING FROM SUPPURATION IN ITS CANCELLOUS TEXTURE.

I pass from the history of suppuration in bone to the consideration of peculiar changes in its cancellous texture, which it is intended to comprise in the term caries.

The term caries is often employed to designate ulceration of bone, whether arising from simple inflammation or from malignant disease. It is also used to designate a peculiar organic change in bone, which consists in a crumbling or mouldering of its substance: in the museum of St, Bar- - tholomew’s Hospital ' there is a tibia, a portion of the shaft of which is converted into a soft and crumbling yellowish substance; and I have been accustomed to consider this as an example of the condition of bone from which some of the ancient writers probably derived their description of caries. But I purpose here to express by the term caries the changes which, under certain circumstances, are conse- quent on chronic suppuration in the cancellous texture of bone.

1 Virst series, No. 78, Plate 4, fig. 4. �