Surgical emergencies : together with the emergencies attendant on parturition and the treatment of poisoning : a manual for the use of general practitioners / by William Paul Swain.

  • Swain, William Paul
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical emergencies : together with the emergencies attendant on parturition and the treatment of poisoning : a manual for the use of general practitioners / by William Paul Swain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    The method of applying extension to the lower ex- tremities by weight is as follows: A strip of adhesive plaster, two inches wide, is cut long enough to reach from the knee down one side of the leg, and up the other side to the knee again, leaving a loop about six inches long below the sole of the foot. This being ap- plied, it is further fixed by strips of plaster, one inch wide, encircling the limb from just above the ankle to the tubercle of the tibia, the whole being kept in place by a bandage firmly applied from the toes upwards. To the loo]) is attached a cord, with a weight at the other end, the cord passing over a pulley at the foot of the bed. A piece of stick should be placed transversely across the loop, to take ofP all pressure from the ankles, and the bed should be raised at the foot, to prevent the patient being pulled down by the weight. The amount of weight must vary with the age of the patient, it being estimated that a pound should be allowed for every year up to twenty. The use of the aspirator has been alluded to in the previous pages. The following description of the aspi- rator, and its method of use, is published by Messrs. Weiss, whose aspirator is here figured (Fig. 76): The aspirator consists of— 1. A glass bottle or reservoir, a, mounted with a two- way stop-cock, B, and having an opening at the bottom for the insertion of the tube c. 2. An exhausting syringe with elastic connecting tube, D H. 3. A series of tubular needles to be attached to the reservoir by an elastic tube, as shown at E F.