Further observations on the use of nitric acid as an escharotic, in vascular tumours of the rectum / by John Houston, M.D.

  • John Houston
Date:
[1844]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further observations on the use of nitric acid as an escharotic, in vascular tumours of the rectum / by John Houston, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    means necessai-y for a removal of such diseases ; and if the surgeon can thus, by the substitution of an acid for the knife, the noose, or the red hot iron, succeed in stripping his ser- vices of their terrors, he will, by gaining upon the patient, steal a march upon the disease, and thereby find an opportu- nity of applying to it an easy, because an early, remedy. It would be a prejudice against the acid, not founded in fact, to have it go abroad that the treatment by its means was very painful, for there is no peculiar or unusual amount of pain produced by its application, and sometimes the pain is very trifling. I assisted my friend Dr. Fleming, in his own study, iu the application of the nitric acid to a vascular tumour of large size in a young gentleman, who, after leaving us, thought so little of the matter that he walked for amusement to witness the ascent of a balloon ; and, nevertheless, the ap- plication was shewn afterwards to have been sufficiently effec- tive, by its curing completely the disease. The fact is, that, as in every other operation of the kind, the amount of pain experienced will be very much in proportion to the irritability of the patient and the sensitiveness of the affected part, and, therefore, in all cases where there is much apprehension on this point, where the application of the acid has been exten- sive, and, particularly, where there is a prolapse to be kept up, it will be well to administer an opiate, and let the patient retire to bed. Case V.— Vascular Tumour^ with Prolapse of the Mucous Membrane of the Rectum, Edward Cullen, a shoemaker, unmarried, admitted into the City of Dublin Hospital, December 26, 1848, at the re- commendation of Dr. Bigger. About sixteen years ago he first observed a slight discharge of blood from the rectum, appearing periodically at intervals of two or three weeks. At the end of two years (the haemorrhage continuing all the time) a prolapse of the bowel began to form, at first easily
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