Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/405

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MASSAGE IN SPRAINS AND DISLOCATIONS.
387

voluntary motion. Fifteen or twenty days of this treatment seems to be all that is necessary in mankind; and this is just about the length of time required for the repair of the rent in the capsule. In the meantime, the surrounding tissues are preserved in health and activity by means of the massage.

Soon after the swelling from the injuries to the dogs had subsided the muscles became more or less atrophied in the limb that had not been masséed, but not at all in the limb that had been masséed. At the end of five or six months the dogs were killed and the tissues examined by the microscope. The muscular tissue of the side that had not been masséed presented a diffuse sclerosis or hardening; the connective tissue intervening between the fibers and bundles of fibers was thickened; there were interstitial hæmorrhages, especially in the cellular tissue around the

Fig. 1.—Bruised Muscle without Massage. f, muscular fasciculus; c, intermuscular connective tissue. Fig. 2.—Bruised Muscle with Massage. f, muscular fasciculus; c', intermuscular connective tissue.

Fig. 2 shows that the natural size of the intermuscular connective tissue has been preserved, while Fig. 1 shows the intermuscular tissue thickened, and the muscular bundles thinner and compressed. (From the Archives générales de Médecine, Fevrier, 1892, p. 197.)

muscles; the internal and external coverings of the bundles of muscular fibers (perimysia) were infiltrated with blood, and also the fascia or covering outside of this. The transverse markings of the muscular fibers (striæ) were effaced in many places, while the longitudinal striation or marking, which is not seen normally, was very distinct. The muscular tissue from the corresponding region that had been masséed was found to be normal in every particular. M. Castex has left us to surmise the appearance of the sarcolemma or covering of the individual fibers. In all probability this also was hardened, thickened, and infiltrated with blood as were the outer and larger coverings.

The blood-vessels appeared perfectly natural from the masséed side, but from the side that had not been masséed they presented a hyperplasia or thickening of their external coat.

The nerve filaments were found to be natural in the masséed