Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne.
- Watson Cheyne
- Date:
- 1882
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
572/656 page 536
![Another case was admitted during these years, a little child with psoas abscess. This was opened aseptically, but the parents insisted on removing the child 3 days after the operation, for no apparent reason. As of course such a case could not be of any value in regard to the effects of treatment, I have not included it in the list. We have thus 37 cases of abscess connected with disease of the spine treated by free incision and the insertion of a di-ainage- tube under strict aseptic precautions. Of these 23, or 62-1 p. c, were certainly cured. This figure does not however represent all the cases which recovered, for several of the patients left hospital continuing the aseptic method, and I see no reason why these did not also recover. I would thus consider that 4 other patients (Nos. 3, 7,18, and 36) were probably also cured, giving a total of 27 cm-es, or 72-9 per cent, of cures. Of these 37 cases 4 died in hospital, and 1 is known to have died soon after leaving hospital, giving 5 known deaths in 37 cases, or a mortality of 13-5 p. c. But it may be said: 'The cases which putrefied and were discharged also died ;' and no doubt some of them did. Beckoning these cases therefore as also cases in which a fatal result ultimately occurred, we should have 9 deaths in 37 cases, or a mortality of 24*3 per cent. We know however that this percentage is too high, for the boy No. 28 was improving in general condition when he was last heard of, and he very probably recovered, and the result in No. 16 was by no means certainly fatal. If we enquire into the causes of death we find, that some of them must necessarily be present in a certain number of these patients. Thus Nos. 12 and 24 died of phthisis, while No. 21 died of exhaustion, and on post-mortem examination there was found most extensive disease of the spinal colimin, so extensive and of such a nature that the chance of recovery under any circumstances was exceedingly minute, if indeed it can be said to have existed at alL No 5 died of a cause quite independent of the lumbar abscess; indeed this case ought to be reckoned as one which was cm*ed of the lumbar abscess, but which died from another cause before leaving hospital. Tlie case shows very well (he dangers of a se])tic as compared with those of an aseptic wound; for for months the patient had had an open](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20409928_0574.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
