The cure of the more difficult as well as the simpler inguinal ruptures.

  • Halsted, William, 1852-1922.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cure of the more difficult as well as the simpler inguinal ruptures. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    7/40 (page 1)
    [From The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Bulletin, Vol. XIV, No. 149, August, 1903.] THE CURE OF THE MORE DIFFICULT AS WELL AS THE SIMPLER INGUINAL RUPTURES. By W. S. Halsted, M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief, The Johns Hopkins Hospital. This communication will, I hope, be of interest to friends [2081 who have asked for precise information as to the modifications which our operation for hernia has undergone in the process of development during the past thirteen years, and of service to operators who seek to obtain in each instance a result as perfect as possible and who recognize that not infrequently there occur cases of hernia requiring for their cure extraor- dinary operative procedures. The present operation has been evolved by degrees and stands for the experience of 14 years derived from more than 1000 operations for the cure of in- guinal hernia; features of the old where they seemed unneces- sary have been dropped and new ones, as they seemed to be indicated, added. To record even the cruder general results of so many operations (upon adults with few exceptions)* for the cure of inguinal hernia are required special training, some 1 The value of an operation for the cure of inguinal hernia can hardly be determined upon children for the surgeon is greatly assisted by nature as the child develops, and he is not confronted with the more difficult problems arising from an undeveloped or an acquired atrophy of the conjoined tendon, or from fatty degeneration and atrophy of the inter- nal oblique muscle. Furthermore, the recurrences have almost invari- ably followed operations for the cure of very large and old ruptures, such as are impossible in children. And to quote from Bloodgood, As we have had no recurrences in children whether the veins have been excised or not, it does not seem to make much diflerence what is done with the very small cord.