12 SUPERFICIAL INFLAMMATION OF BONE.
chronic variety of the disease. The simple acute variety, as I have remarked, can seldom be traced on dissection, at least I have never had the good fortune to see it in an uncombined form. It is in truth one of those affections which is more easily recognised during life than after death. When it exists, the patient complains of severe pain, which is referred to the bone, and the pain is increased on the application of forcible and continued pressure. Should the inflammatory action have commenced in the soft parts covering the bone, there is generally considerable tumefaction of the affected organ. This swelling is usually of a simple inflammatory character, sometimes of an œdemato-erysipelatous appearance, and pits on pressure; it differs, however, from common œdema, in being insufferably painful on pressure, and in being attended with very considerable constitutional irritation. We meet occasionally with good illustrations of this disease, in cases of incipient paronychia, and in the joints of rheumatic subjects.
