Thoracic resection for tumors growing from the bony wall of the chest / F.W. Parham.

  • Parham, Frederick W.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoracic resection for tumors growing from the bony wall of the chest / F.W. Parham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    were crooked on the side of the edge ; and either that the sec- tion operated by this instrument—which cuts less in sawing than in pressing, and bruises tiie tissue wiiieli it divides— had determined the retraction of the vessels, or that their size had diminished in consequence of the antecedent cauteri- zations, there did not run a drop of blood, but at this moment the exterior air made an eruption into the chest, rushiug in with violence and compressing the left lung, which, with the heart enveloped in the pericardium, was borne toward the orifice. I sought, by placing thereto the left hand, to moder- ate the entrance of air and to prevent suffocation, which appeared imminent, while with the right hand I applied on the wound a large bolster spread with cerate. The entrance of the air was suddenly stopped by this greasy cloth, large enough to cover not only the wound, but moreover all the side of the chest corresponding. I fixed above a large and thick piece of lint; I covered it again with some bolsters, and supported all the apparatus with a rolled bandage, mid- dling tight. The anxiety and difficulty of respiration were extreme during the twelve hours which succeeded the operation. The patient passed the night entirely in a sitting position. Toward morning sinapisms, applied to the soles of the feet and to the inner surface of the thighs, rendered the respiration more easy. From that moment the pulse grew higher and the strength was reanimated. The patient took nothing else for his drink and diet than an infusion of flowers of the linden tree, and of violets sprinkled with some drops of water dis- tilled from orange flowers and sweetened with the syrup of gum arabic. Three days passed thus : Tiie fever was abated, and the oppression sufficiently great to de|)rive the patient of sleep. The first dressing was removed ninety-six hours after the operation. The pericardium and the lungs had contracted ailherence with the contour of the quadrilateral aperture, a kind of window made in front of the heart. Happily the adhesion between tiie ])oricardium and lungs was not com- plete; for, from the sixth to the twelfth day, through want
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