Papers on dermatology and allied subjects / by E.D. Mapother.

  • Edward Mapother
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Papers on dermatology and allied subjects / by E.D. Mapother. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    surface, and can be drained by the sources just mentioned. The fittest site for leeching would then be over the third space, between the spine and scapula. Lately, in St. Vincent's Hospital, a girl, recovering from acute rheu- matism, was seized with sudden and intense dyspnoea, due, it was believed, to pulmonary embolism. Free leeching in the place indicated gave the most surprising relief. Con- gestion of the pulmonary circulation, such as has been so often seen during periods of bronchitic mortality, could be better relieved by leeching over the thyroid plexus. When surgical injuries to the lungs arrest breathing power, and in all those frequent medical cases which obstruct the pulmonary circulation, and overload and palsy the right ventricle, thyroid bleeding seems clearly indicated. Vene- section at the elbow can only relieve the general circulation as so many valves act between that point and the right heart. Over fifty years ago Professor John Reid proved the wonderful preventive power of jugular bleeding— especially from the lower orifice—over death in drowned and hanged animals, and those poisoned by drugs which paralyse muscular tissue. At all times blood easily passes from the right ventricle to the auricle. It must be remem- bered that the pulmonary veins are quite exceptional in having no larger capacity than the pulmonary arteries. The abdominal wall is supplied by the internal mammary, lower intercostal, and epigastric vessels, while the organs within are connected with the aorta, and the portal, and in- ferior caval veins. They are, moreover, separated by a great serous cavity. Leeching the skin of the belly may, there- fore, drain the inflamed parietal peritoneum, but cannot sensibly affect the circulation in the stomach, intestines, liver or spleen. These organs return their blood by the portal vein, and draining it at the rectum is the fittest indication when they are congested or inflamed, and every one must have observed the relief which bleeding piles afford in this way. If, however, Luschka's statement (which I have been often able to verify), that the umbilical vein, or ligamcntum
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