Clinical surgery : address delivered in the University of Glasgow, 4th Novermber, 1874, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Chair / by George Buchanan.

George Buchanan

Date:: 1874

Credit: Clinical surgery : address delivered in the University of Glasgow, 4th Novermber, 1874, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Chair / by George Buchanan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$asked the stranger to accompany me. Standing beside the bed of a patient who was recovering from a compound depressed fracture of the frontal bone, without having had a bad symptom, I said, “We are indebted in great part to one of your countrymen, for our present improved mode of treating such cases. We have been taught almost to abandon the use of the trephine by Stromeyer of Hanover.” “My father-in-law,” replied my visitor. “ Indeed,” I exclaimed, “and you are ?” “Esmarch of Kiel.” It so happened that, on the morning in question, I was to remove a large vascular scrotal tumour. Dr. Esmarch accompanied me to the theatre, and the patient was put under the influence of chloro¬ form. Turning to Dr. Esmarch, I said, “It is a great pity that your bloodless method is not applicable to such a case, as I shall operate with great anxiety, owing to the exhausted condition of the man and the great vascularity of the tumour.” He at once undertook to apply pressure in a way which, he believed, would prevent any haemorrhage. Be¬ ing provided with a long India rubber tube, he passed it round the base of the scrotum, across ! the pubis, and round the loins, and fixed it in I front of the abdomen. To my surprise and delight, I removed the great mass by a complicated and tedious dissection, without the loss of any blood ; except what escaped at the first incision from the gorged veins on the surface. The man was dis-$