The disintegration of organic tissue by high tension discharges / by J. Inglis Parsons.

  • Parsons, J. Inglis, 1857-1928.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disintegration of organic tissue by high tension discharges / by J. Inglis Parsons. 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.

    18/21 (page 13)
    The importance of arriving at this conclusion cannot be over-estimated, because if these powerful currents should come into practical use for malignant disease, it is imperative to knoAv the area as nearly as possible that will be disintegrated. I have found in using a voltaic Current that some patients are very susceptible to electricity, and cannot stand a very poAverful shock. Having found that thirty interruptions at a giAmn pressure would produce disinte- gration with the needles 3 inches apart, I next tried the effect of reducing the pressure by one-half and doubling the number of interruptions to try if it Avould make up for the reduction in pressure. On comparison the results were found to be the same. This Avas most satisfac- tory if it Avould also apply to living cells, because with patients unable to stand strong currents, the defect could Avithin certain limits be made up by using a greater number of discharges. It soon became apparent in carrying out these experiments that one must knoAV hoAV much tissue was included betAveen the needle points when these were placed at different distances from each other. For instance, if the needles are 4 inches apart at one experiment and at another are 3 inches apart, it Avill be obA'ious that more tissue will be affected in one case than in the other, and that in order to make up for this the pressure must either be increased or more inter- ruptions must be given. The question, then, is this— What is the proportion betAveen the solid contents of an elliptic spindle 4 inches long compared with another 3 inches long ? The calculation is rather difficult, and one of my friends, a mathematician, kindly confirmed my results. The con- tents of a solid elliptic spindle four inches long contains more than double the tissue of another Avhich is three inches long. If Ave take the tissue included in an elliptic spindle tAVO inches long as 1, then at three inches the contents Avill be 3’3 greater ; at four inches 8 times greater ; at five inches