Elephantiasis Arabum of the right inferior extremity : successfully treated by ligature of the femoral artery / by J.M. Carnochen.

  • John Murray Carnochan
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elephantiasis Arabum of the right inferior extremity : successfully treated by ligature of the femoral artery / by J.M. Carnochen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    progress of the disease, foetid and incurable ulcerations may occur, abscesses may take place among the morbid tissues, and the internal organs may become deranged. The prog¬ nosis, consequently, must be unfavorable, when the disease has existed for some time, and assumed its characteristic, chronic and intractable form. In the early stages of the disease, it is possible that it may be confounded, especially in females, in whom the subcuta¬ neous strata are usually thicker than in males, with diffuse and deep-seated inflammation of the cellular tissue, or with oedema or anasarca. The history and progress of the disease, the sensation imparted, upon examination, by the tumor, and the peculiar local traits, generally suffice to enable the practi¬ tioner to discriminate, without much difficulty, between ele¬ phantiasis and the other diseases just named. It would appear from the different accounts given of this disease, that the whole of the tissues of a member may become ultimately implicated. Some are primarily affected, while others, such as the bones, are probably not involved in the morbid degeneration, until the disease has been of long stand¬ ing. The tissues primarily affected would seem to be the vascular ; and the pain, redness, and hardness met with in the first stage of the disease, in the course of the lymphatic vessels, together with the appearances of the veins, upon autopsy, as mentioned by Bouillaud and others, evince with sufficient certainty a pathologic condition of the vessels. The arteries also participate in the disease, and very probably at an early stage of its invasion. The skin generally shows early participation in the mal¬ ady ; most commonly the development of the initiatory stage is accompanied by some form of cutaneous affection, such as eczema, erysipelas, lichen, or ulceration. These affections oc¬ cur, however, so frequently without any of the hard and bulky intumescence characteristic of elephantiasis being manifested as a sequent, that it is reasonable to suppose they are accompa¬ niments merely of disease of the deeper-seated tissues, especially of the vascular tissues upon which, in reality, the elephantiasis depends. The different strata of the skin are hypertrophied to a
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