Primary cancer of the Fallopian tube / by Alban Doran.

  • Doran, Alban H. G. (Alban Henry Griffiths), 1849-1927
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primary cancer of the Fallopian tube / by Alban Doran. 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 operation in their vicinity. As the symptoms and pain sub- sided, a tumour was discovered, rising to the right above the pubes. The tumour grew slowly and the patient lost flesh. On March 1st, 1888, Mr. Thornton operated. The abdominal walls were fat, and bled freely on section ; there was no free fluid in the peritoneal cavity. The course of the operation is thus described by the operator :—“ Tube exposed, much distended, soft and elastic, punctured with fine trocar, then with aspirator. Only a little ill-smelling bloody serum escaped, with fragments like those coming from the vagina. Punctures closed by square-headed forceps and corrosive sublimate lotion freely used. Large forceps put on to the tube close to the uterus. Then the outer part of the tube, which had curled inwards over the ovary and behind the uterus, was gradually separated from both, the adhesions being very fine, so that I could only tear away part of the ovary, leaving the rest sticking to the broad ligament. When the tube was sufficiently freed, I transfixed and tied in two halves, but on cutting away was obliged to put on several pairs of forceps, as vessels spouted. I then put another bgature round the whole, transferring large forceps to distal side before tying ligatures. The end of the tube left in the stump was patent, but seemed fairly healthy; one small portion of the diseased tissue was removed on the cotton-wool dijjped in corrosive sublimate lotion used for cleaning it out” (The “diseased tissue” was probably decolourised clot, with which the uterine end of the removed por- tion was stuffed.) “ I then witb much difficulty removed the left tube and part of a small cystic ovary, the adhesions being much denser than on the right side, and some separate ligatures being required for adhe- sions deep in the pelvis. The uterus was not so large as I thought at first, and seemed fairly firm and healthy, so that I rather doubted if there was any of the growth in it.” A glass drainage- tube was introduced with some difficulty, as the pelvis was blocked with firmly adherent intestine. The patient made a good recovery, the temperature never rising above 101‘2°; the tube was removed on March 4th. She was sent back to the convalescent ward on March 7th, and discharged at the end of the third week of the same month. [In August, 1888, she was in good health.] The mucous membrane of the left tube was thickened, but free from any morbid growth, as was likewise the ovary. The right