Deafness practically illustrated / [James Yearsley].

  • James Yearsley
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Deafness practically illustrated / [James Yearsley]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    140/200 page 128
    near the margin of the membrana tympani. Surgeons should accustom themselves to look into the external meatus, as considerable practice is necessary to enable them to see any change which may exist at the bottom of this passage. With respect to tonsillary enlargement inducing deaf- ness, by interfering with the integrity of the Eustachian tubes, and keeping up a morbid condition of these and the tympanal cavities, I have before remarked that the diseased growth, from its position, is often more pal- pable to the touch than the eye. For this reason the throat should be always explored with the finger when it is supposed to be implicated. When the tonsils are arrived at a state of induration, operative means are indispensable for their removal. Previous to this con- dition, local bleeding, counter irritation, emetics, and iodine will be found the most successful remedies. In my earlier operations for the removal of these morbid growths, I tried all the means recommended by authors, —ligature, caustic, the guillotine knife, common bis- toury, and scalpel, with none of which I could be satis- fied. It seemed to me that a strong knife was necessary, which would not bend as the probe-pointed bistoury often does when opposed to an indurated tonsil, nor tear in the scissors-like manner of the guillotine, an instru- ment which, however specious in its appearance, will be found altogether inapplicable in practice, except in the rare cases where the tonsil is pendulous. The same, I believe, may be said of any apparatus for the application of ligatures. The scalpel I rejected because of the risk of wounding the back of the throat with its point. To avoid these various objections I imagined a
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