Volume 2
A system of operative surgery, founded on the basis of anatomy / by Charles Bell.
- Charles Bell
- Date:
- 1814
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A system of operative surgery, founded on the basis of anatomy / by Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
186/576 page 140
![the axilla are to be most particularly attended to. * If the glands in the axilla have occasionally en- larged, and again subsided, it is more favourable than when they have become hard and enlarged by a slow and uniform progress. The glands in both sides should be examined and compared, for often the lymphatic glands are naturally large. TREATMENT BEFORE OPERATION. The first consideration, which, by the bye, the mere operating surgeon is apt to forget, is the connection betwixt the uterine system and the breast. We must recollect, the very peculiar effect of pregnancy on the mamma; and the change which takes place on menstruation, as well as from all changes of whatever kind pro- duced in the uterine system. There may be a swelling with tension, and throb- bing in the breast. This may be a sympathetic swelling of the gland, or an occasional inflamma- tion, excited by the presence of a diseased portion seated in the gland. Leeches, fomentation, and saline purges will remove this state of tension j and the repetition of the leeching or cupping, and the vinegar poultice, will secure the subsiding of the inflammatory swelling. After this, there may re- main a harder nucleus, perceptible in the sub- stance of the breast. The indurations which are a consequence of the genera] inflammation, yield to friction with cam- * See Sir Everard Home, on Cancer. phorated](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21536387_0002_0186.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
