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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    up all business, and confine himself chiefly to a recumbent posture. In this condition, the patient left Virginia for the pur¬ pose of seeking medical relief at the New-York Emigrants’ Hospital, into which he was admitted the fifteenth of January, 1851. The appearance of the patient upon entering the Hos¬ pital was somewhat emaciated. He had no febrile symptoms, and the chief difficulty, under which he labored, arose from the enlarged and hypertrophied condition of the right inferior extremity. The limb was enlarged from the toes to within a short distance below Poupart’s ligament. The thigh, although en¬ larged, was not much indurated ; while, from a short distance above the patella, downwards, the limb presented a dense, hy¬ pertrophied, hard, scaly, shapeless mass, the appearance of which will be best apprehended by referring to the accompanying plate. The morbid condition of the tissues pervaded the foot and toes, there presenting groups of tuberculated growths. The circumference of the limb around the ankle, was nearly as large as that of the calf; measuring fifteen and one-half inches, while the circumference of the calf measured nineteen and one half inches. The patient was put under treatment upon entering the Hospital. The recumbent posture was enjoined, and for some time various discutient lotions were used. Bandaging was re¬ sorted to, with frictions of ung. Potass. lodid; the Iodide of Potassium being also^prescribed internally. At times, also, the limb was painted with strong tincture of Iodine; local and general baths were used, regular bandaging of the limb, from the toes upward, being the while carefully observed. This plan of treatment was perseveringly adhered to from the fifteenth of January to the twenty-second of March, a period of a little over two months, without any amelioration. Having thus tried, without success, the method of treatment most ap¬ proved of, 1 proposed to place a ligature upon the femoral ar¬ tery, with a view of changing the morbid condition of the structures supplied by the branches of this arterial trunk. A
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