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.
191/576 page 145
![OF THE CUTTING OUT OF THE GLANDS OF THE AXILLA. I believe that the glands of the axilla ought not to be cut out, or at least, that we cannot expect good to result from cutting out a tumour formed of a diseased cluster of these glands. Notwithstand- ing, I permit the following observations to remain in this edition: — When the glands of the axilla are much enlarged and deep, it is a more difficult and dangerous operation to take them out, than the excision of the breast. I have seen a surgeon cut amongst the glands, and then find himself puzzled to discover how they had escaped him, and unable to distinguish which were the glands that he had intended to cut out. Therefore, when these glands are small and loose, but have become very hard, and have not yet condensed the surrounding cellular membrane, I would have the surgeon to examine well pre- viously ; then fix them betwixt his fore and middle finger, pressed upon the side of the chest; then cut down upon the glands, and before the fingers of the left hand are raised, put the dissecting-hook fairly through them, and pull them out. But this is a trifling operation compared with the dissection of the deep indurated and clustered tu- mour of the axillary glands. In this case, the tu- mour should be dissected to little more than the extent of its outward hemisphere, and then insu- lated by working with the fingers; around the stringy shreds and vessels by which it is still held,] a liga- yol. 11. l ture](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21536387_0002_0191.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
