The contractile force generated by the healing wound can be visualized
as the sum of the forces of contraction developed across each of the
minute segments of the scar. If splintage is effected in such a way th
at the splint itself adheres to the scar, each small segment of the sp
lint needs to be rigid enough to resist only the minute contractile fo
rce generated by the corresponding small segment of the scar. This hyp
othesis was tested by means of an experiment using 30 adult white rats
. Two full-thickness wounds were created on the backs of each animal a
nd covered with split-thickness skin grafts. One of the grafted areas
was splinted by an adherent acrylic membrane and the other was left un
splinted, acting as the control. At 8 weeks, the splinted grafts had r
etained 95 percent of the original size. The difference between the sp
linted and unsplinted grafts was statistically significant. Further ev
aluation of the principle of adherent nonrigid splintage could lead to
its application in the clinical context.