When the bones of children or of persons affected with rickets have been slightly and gradually bent, and the bony tissue and periosteum have been stretched without suffering a breach of their continuity, they are gradually restored to their natural direction without giving any sign of reaction. And those injuries also in which the bones of children are rapidly and violently bent, are easily repaired. But when bones are bent to an angle by a greater and more sudden force, and a real, though not always perceptible, solution of continuity takes place, whether it be on the one side a tearing asunder, or on the other a crushing, of the outermost layers of the bony tissue, the injury is repaired like a fracture by first intention. When bones affected with rickets and osteomalacia are bent in this manner the callus generally continues in a soft half-cartilaginous state, and does not obtain its perfect internal structure till the disease is cured. To this, however, there are exceptions, for bones affected with these diseases, when bent and partly fractured, and also when broken quite through, are sometimes reunited by bony callus: and it is not till after it has reached a certain stage of development, especially in osteomalacia, that the callus undergoes the peculiar metamorphosis.