Scalp
the term employed to designate the outer covering of the skull or brain case. Except in the fact that hair in both sexes grows more luxuriantly on the scalp than elsewhere, the skin of the sc scalp differs only slightly slightly from ordinary skin. Besides the skin the scalp is composed of the expanded tendon of the occipito-frontalis muscle, and of intermediate cellular tissue and blood vessels. Injuries of the scalp, however slight, must be watched with great caution, for they may be followed by erysipelas, or by inflammation and suppuration under the occipito-frontal muscle, or within the cranium, or by suppuration of the veins of the cranial bones, and general pyæmia that may easily prove fatal. If dressed antiseptically at an early stage the risk of such accidents is of course greatly diminished. Burns of the scalp are very liable to be followed by erysipelas erysipelas and diffuse inflammation, but the brain is comparatively seldom affected in these cases. Tumors of the scalp are not uncommon.