Ligations of the left subclavian artery in its first portion / by William S. Halsted.

  • Halsted, William, 1852-1922.
Date:
[between 1900 and 1999]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ligations of the left subclavian artery in its first portion / by William S. Halsted. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    j Med K31205 LIGATIONS OP THE LEFT SUBCLAVIAN ARTERY IN ITS FIRST PORTION* * * § By WILLIAM S. HALSTED, M. D. In a delightful discourse^ on arterio-venous aneurism Osier takes a swift flight into a vibrant domain of surgery, tracing into and out of the dark ages steps of the few surgeons who blazed the way. Well he knew and loved the crystal springs and sources bearing their tiny freights of knowledge to the flood. Eeaders of The Johns Hoplcins Hospital Reports will welcome the quotation from Sir William^s paper: Better than any other disease aneurysm illustrates how borderless are the boundaries of medicine and surgery. Here am I talking on the most surgical of all its aspects, while very likely not far away a surgeon is practising the best possible prevention against internal aneurysm in giving a syphilitic patient an injection of salvarsan! Aneurysm has been a medico-chirurgical affection ever since some bungling young ^ minutor ^ first nicked the brachial artery in performing venesection. One of the earliest and most interesting references in literature is to an instance of this kind. Galen was called in consultation by a young and inexperienced surgeon who had opened the artery at the bend of the elbow instead of the vein, and the blood spurted out clarus, rubens, lucidus et calidus.^ ‘ I took in the situation at once; there happened to be an elderly physician with me, so we prepared a medicine, viscid, conglutinable, and obstructive, and placing it strongly against the lips of the wound bound over it a soft sponge. The surgeon who had opened the artery wondered, but said noth¬ ing. When we went out [note the professional touch!] I said to the surgeon that he had opened the pulsating vessel, and charged him not to dress the wound before the fourth day, and not without me.’ The cure was complete, and Galen remarks that this was his only successful case of the kind, as in all others aneurysm had followed. This account, taken from Symphorien Campegius Glaudu Galeni Pergameni Historiales Campi, Basilae, 1532, p. 53, is doubtless of the case referred to in the M.ethodus Medendi.\ The only other references to aneurysm in Galen are in the Be Tumorihus prceter Naturam I and in the Be Curandi Ratione per Sanguinis Missionem,% in which he refers to the possibility of gangrene. * Received for publication June 26, 1920. f “ Linacre’s edition, 1517, f. Ixii, v.” t “ Junta, fifth edition, 1576, iii, p. 84.” § “ IMd., vi, p. 21.”