Surgical experiences : the substance of clinical lectures. / By Samuel Solly.

  • Samuel Solly
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical experiences : the substance of clinical lectures. / By Samuel Solly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    aiitimoniale to eacli dose. Port-wine and beef-tea from tlie first. The patient ono’ht to be purged freely, and diuretics to be given. The antimony ought to make the skin jierspire Ireely. The wound should be poul- ticed and fomented. ]\Ir. Arnott, in his paper already referred to, collected thirty-three cases of purulent absorption following injuries of the head. In twenty-one ol these, the secondary purulent deposits took place in the abdominal viscera; in five, in the thorax; in six, in the abdomen and thorax conjointly. In one there was a deposition of pus in the substance of the heart; one, in the kidney; one, in the spleen; one, in the integuments of the back. So that you will perceive by these facts that the lungs are not the only organs where secondary purulent deposits take place. “ The general course of these cases,” says Mr. Amott, “ seems to have been this, and in the great majority (twenty-fom’) it is so stated, that the patient for some time did well, having- recovered his consciousness when this had been lost, which was frequently not the case, was free fr’om fever, and the wound suppurating kindly; that afterwards unfavourable symptoms took place, consisting of fevers, rigors, nausea and vomiting, delirium, yellow colour of the skin, and sometimes, shortly before death, pain in the right hypochon- cbium, or affection of the chest. There was some difference in the period at which these symptoms appeared, but of nineteen cases— the earliest of which was the seventh, and the latest the twenty- fourth day—the average was between the thh'teenth and fourteenth day after the accident. The average period of the fatal termina- tion of the same cases was between the twenty-second and twenty- third days, the earhest being on the fifteenth, and the latest on the twenty-seventh, subsequent to the injury.” Having given you tins general sketcli of what we mean by purulent absorption, I think you will be better prepared to understand the following case. But you will understand that I have only given a general sketch of the subject, not pretending to tell you all that has been written regarding it. I trust that I have interested you in its pathology, and that you will watch every case that occurs in the hospital with greater interest and attention.