Volume 1
The science and art of surgery : a treatise on surgical injuries, diseases, and operations / by John Eric Erichsen.
- Date:
- 1884
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The science and art of surgery : a treatise on surgical injuries, diseases, and operations / by John Eric Erichsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
40/1220 page 8
![his exposure to a vitiated atmosphere contaminated by the emanations from the sick and wounded, such as is commonly met with in the wards of an over- crowded or ill-constructed hospital.* . . The proper regulation of the patient’s Diet before and after an operation is of great consequence. On this point it is impossible to lay down any very definite rule, as much depends not only on the patient s previous habits ot life, but on the nature of the operation itself; and, as this subject will be discussed at the end of the Chapter, it need not detain us here It is not, however, often that in civil practice the insufficient quantity or the bad quality of the patient s food with which he is supplied after the performance, influences materially the result of an operation. But in military and naval practice in time of w-ai ic case is far different. The soldier or the sailor on active service is often exposed to serious injuries that necessitate the more important operations at a time when his constitutional powers have already been broken down by scuivy, dysentery, or some other similar affection, resulting as much from the deficient quantity as from the unwholesome character of the food with which aloiie he can be supplied. After the operation Ins only available nutimient may of the coarsest character, possibly salted, and imperfectly cooked In such circumstances operation-wounds do not heal, or they assume a peculiai gang nous character; and the patient dies from septicaemia or pyaemia, or from prerfuse diarrhoea with ulceration of the intestines. The mortahty of operation becomes enormously increased ; and thousands of deaths which have occurred in wars between the most civilised nations and the best appointed armies ha ljGTConditions to which the patient is subjected after an operation will necessarily vary greatly according to the locality in, and the ciicumstances under which it is performed-whether it is done m a private house, ^here t J patient may be isolated, freed from the chance of all contamination, and surrounded by every sanitary precaution; or in a hospital, where he mm LyCiutaC”by the condMmt “ 'f “TeSs . , ^ i Then a°-ain the circumstances in which a patient is mmmm causes, viz.: self-infection oi f ^ “ J, . conveyance of infection decomposing and putrescent se^et m fte non> ]lts of the house. j„ by the Surgeon ; and general faulty snuit. , necessarily exist to thc ™ “to thrac rauses](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21974081_0001_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
