In calling attention to delayed healing following the simple operation on the mastoid, I expect to play on a sympathetic cord—that of companions in misery. For to me, at least, the experience in treating some of the patients has been trying in the extreme. When I turned to the literature for help, or at least consolation, I was struck, not with the scarcity of articles on the subject, but with their almost entire absence.
Although all authors mentioned delayed healing following measles, diphtheria or scarlet fever, Kerrison alone referred, somewhat in extenso, to delayed healing in mastoiditis caused by the usual infecting organisms. I quote the following paragraph from his recent textbook under the title of "Arrested Repair":
A post-operative condition, of which I have seen no mention in text books, but with which the surgeon has occasionally to deal, is characterized by the abortive type of granulations which line