Lectures on the operations of surgery : and on diseases and accidents requiring operations / by Robert Liston ; with numerous additions by Thomas D. Mütter.

  • Robert Liston
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the operations of surgery : and on diseases and accidents requiring operations / by Robert Liston ; with numerous additions by Thomas D. Mütter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the trephine, so as to take in one edge of the opening, as you see represented here. Fig. 30. Here is a piece of stone that was extracted from a punctured wound of the cranium. A man was knocked down at night by some cowardly blackguards, and being found insensible by the police, was carried home. The next day he had this piece of stone extracted from the cranium by a practitioner to whom he applied, and then, being a hackney-coachman, he drove a party of people to church, who had engaged him; after this he went home, and partook, I believe, of a considerable quantity of whisky; I saw him on the following day, Monday, and he was then suffering under fever and other violent symptoms. A considerable quantity of blood was extracted, a trephine applied, and these splinters of bone [presenting them] taken from the internal table. I think he ultimately died. Here is the bone taken from the man injured in the quarry, and also the bone taken from the child struck by a spinning-top. You can have no doubt, I think, from what I have said to you, that it is absolutely necessary to apply a trephine in cases of this description. The application of a trephine is also required in cases of more extensive fracture with depression, and where the depression is so deep as to interfere permanently with the functions of the cerebrum. You operate, then, with a view to the elevation of the bone to its own proper level, and to remove any splinters that are lying upon the membranes of the brain. You may, in such cases, apply the straight saw in order to make room for the elevator, and save the necessity of removing one or more circular portions of bone. 8
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