On gunshot wounds of the thorax and the treatment pursued for them in the Crimea, contrasted with that which was followed in former campaigns / by George Lawson.

  • George Lawson
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On gunshot wounds of the thorax and the treatment pursued for them in the Crimea, contrasted with that which was followed in former campaigns / by George Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which similar treatment was pursued, and not cases picked to favor any particular mode of reasoning, I think we may justly draw from them, and the remarks which I have made, the two following conclusions :— 1st. That in the treatment of gunshot injuries of the thorax, venesection as a rule is only required to arrest hemorrhage. 2nd. That traumatic pneumonia, or that which follows such injuries, does not necessitate the same active antiphlo¬ gistic remedies as pneumonia arising from other causes, and that the tendency of the inflammatory action is to repair the damage which has been inflicted, and therefore the sur¬ geon should be careful how he rashly interferes with the progress which nature sets up for the patient’s benefit. Do not think that I am an abolitionist, and that I consider the lancet ought never to be used in the treatment of such cases. There are instances where judicious bleeding may be of the greatest benefit to the patient, but what I want to prove is, that bleeding is not a panacea for injuries to the thorax, and that it is not necessary, in order to prevent the patient dying of the injury he has received, to place him almost within death’s grasp from copious venaesection. If I have succeeded in establishing these facts, I have fully accomplished the object of this paper.
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