On the treatment of cicatricial contraction of the fingers by transplantation of completely separated skin flaps / by Robert Kennedy, M.A., D.Sc., M.D., Dispensary Surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow.

  • Kennedy, Robert, -1924.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of cicatricial contraction of the fingers by transplantation of completely separated skin flaps / by Robert Kennedy, M.A., D.Sc., M.D., Dispensary Surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. 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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    At the end of ten days the dressings were removed to ascer- tain the result, and it was found that the transplanted piece of tissue was living and looking red and healthy, although the superficial corneous layer of the skin was soft and separat- ing. Dressings and splint were reapplied. When the child was next seen at the end of the fourteenth day, it was found that the dressings had been removed and reapplied by the mother, in order to show the interesting result to the child’s father. On inspection of the result, the grafted piece of skin was found separated and lying in a collection of pus, while the surface of the finger was covered with granulations. The child was seen some months later, when the original condition of contraction had been completely reproduced. CASE 2. Contraction of index, middle, and ring fingers clue to cicatrix of burn. Excision of cicatrix and transplantation of shin. Success. D. M., male, aged 2 years, was admitted to Dr. Patterson’s wards in the Western Infirmary on 2nd November, 1897- When patient was six months old he sustained a burn on the flexor surfaces of the second, third, and fourth digits, and over part of the palm of the right hand. The burn was caused by the child grasping a red hot cinder. When the burn was healing the three fingers were being gradually drawn towards the palm, and by the time that cicatrization was complete, the fingers had been drawn almost completely into the palm. When the patient was first seen, a year and a half after the accident, the following was the condition found : The right hand presented the index, middle, and ring fingers flexed to the extent of being in close contact with the palm. They were held in this position by tense indurated bands of cicatricial tissue, which were so rigid as to prevent any appreciable extension, even on considerable force being used. The cicatricial bands, fused in the palm, extended from the lower third of the palm to the terminal phalanges of the
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