Remarks on chronic intestinal stasis : with reference to conditions found at operation and the mortality : delivered at the North-East London Post-Graduate College / by Wm. Seaman Bainbridge.

  • William Seaman Bainbridge
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Remarks on chronic intestinal stasis : with reference to conditions found at operation and the mortality : delivered at the North-East London Post-Graduate College / by Wm. Seaman Bainbridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of the colon for growths are not included in our total list of cases. This leaves 54 cases of short-circuit, 52 of removal of the colon—106 in all. Four deaths—two from sepsis, one on the table, and one ten days after operation from pulmonary embolism. Thus the exaggerated state- ments of great mortality are not borne out. Conditions Found at Operating. There are some who are very sceptical as to the condi- tions found at the time of operation. In order to meet this and establish the facts, it has been my custom in my own practice often to have an artist present as well as a steno- grapher at the time of operation to record exactly the conditions found. In order to have such evidence of record as true as possible, I selected an artist who knew nothing but normal conditions. The artist was directed to picture what she saw that differed from normality, with enough of the normal in the neighbourhood to make it clear as to what part was being represented. The stenographer took down a description of the operation at the time. Later, the finished picture on the one hand and the steno- grapher’s description of the operation on the other, form a very important part of the records of the individual case. In some of the pictures, a selection from which is published to illustrate this paper, clear evidence will be seen that the picture portrays the exact condition of the patient lying on the table, and not the condition which would be present when the patient is occupying a per- pendicular position. This goes a long way to prove the honesty of the drawings. To sum up, judging from the experience in Martha Ward at Guy’s Hospital and in my own cases in New York, the mortality in operations for cases of intestinal stasis is astonishingly low. There is very little, if any, shock with the present technique; the much feared excessive thirst and persistent diarrhoea have not been borne out in our experience. [In the captions of the pictures the names in common use for various bands have been employed. It should be understood that these are not looked upon by the writer as constituting in any way separate entities.]
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