Lectures on the theory and practice of surgery / by the late Abraham Colles ... ; edited by Simon M'Coy.

  • Abraham Colles
Date:
1844-1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the theory and practice of surgery / by the late Abraham Colles ... ; edited by Simon M'Coy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/412 page 52
    trouble. You are therefore not to mind all this, but at once close the wound, and that will be sufficient in itself to stop the bleeding, even when so large an artery as the coronary artery of the lips is divided. Having brought the lips of the wound together, you are to take means to keep them so by strips of adhe- sive plaster and bandages. Now, in many situations, the chief object of your attention, to maintain an easy apposition of the lips of the wound, will be posi- tion. Suppose a person is cutting bread, and that the knife slips and inflicts a deep wound between the thumb and forefinger, here you need not apply any- thing but a little dry lint, bandage the thumb lightly to the hand and leave it so. Sometimes, from the shape or other circumstances connected with the wound, you may find it necessary to apply a point or two of the interrupted suture to keep its edges together. Whenever they can be done without, you will not em- ploy sutures of course, and where you must, you will use as few stitches as possible. You take a ligature of the proper size armed with two curved needles, and pass one of them through the skin from within out- wards, you then pass the other through the other edge exactly opposite to the first, and having disengaged the needles, and got the wound brought neatly toge- ther, tie the suture moderately, and assist it with compresses and adhesive plaster. In very deep wounds in fleshy parts, another kind of suture called a Quill Suture has been recommended with the view of keep- ing its sides together at a depth which the common interrupted suture could not act upon; but if com- presses at each side of the wound, bandages and po- sition, do not attain the object, other means will be little likely to do so. You are told not to put sutures in muscular parts, and it is a good rule, but there are
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3