The dissector's manual of practical and surgical anatomy / By Erasmus Wilson.

  • Wilson, Erasmus, Sir, 1809-1884.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dissector's manual of practical and surgical anatomy / By Erasmus Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    should also not lose sight of the ordinary laws of physics and mechanics in his study of the human frame, for, by an intelligent application of these, he will frequently be enabled to comprehend and give a purpose to a part (as of a muscle, for example) even before he has an exact idea of its position and relations. The dissector should furnish himself with an apron with sleeves, which will protect his clothes from the contact with the subject or table, and a case of dissecting instruments. This case must contain from three to six scalpels of different sizes, a tenaculum, a double hook, a pair of forceps, a couple of needles, a pair of scissors, and a cartilage knife. Every other requisite is usually furnished by the rooms in which the student dissects. A dis- sector in the country must provide himself in addition with several large sponges, a couple of blocks of different sizes, a saw, and a mallet, and chisel. When the subject is injected with chloride of zinc, a plan generally adopted in this country, care should be taken not to remove too much of the integument at once, as the parts, when exposed, will dry and become hardened very rapidly, and will require to be soaked in water, in order to be again fit for dis- section.] CHAPTER II. ABDOMEN. [Tlie dissection of the abdomen is to be commenced by an incision from the lower part of the second piece of the sternum down the median line to the pubis; this incision must be carried on each side of the umbi- licus so as to isolate it. A second incision starts from the upper end of the first, downwards and outwards, forming an angle with tlie first of about forty-five degrees. A third is to be commenced at the pubis and carried to the anterior siiperior spinous process of the ilium, and from thence around tlie crista of the ilium as far back as possible. When the skin and superficial fascia are raised from the central line outwards, com- mencing at the upper corner, the external oblique muscle will be fully uncovered, and great care should be taken not to get beneath its tendon, the white shining fibres of which will serve as a guide to its muscular parts upon the thorax, and the outer side of the abdominal parietes. These latter incisions must be repeated on the opposite side of the subject. The integument aloi\e should be dissected at first, leaving the superficial fascia, and after this lias been studie<l it should be removed in the di- rection of the fibres of the muscle and of its ai^oneurosis. One side of