The first lines of the practice of surgery: designed as an introduction for students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners (Volume 1).

  • Samuel Cooper
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first lines of the practice of surgery: designed as an introduction for students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    88/738
    0 Besides the two principal varieties of mortification, which receive the names of humid and dry from the state and ap- pearance of the sphacelated parts, there is a third species of the disorder, which is peculiar in being of a contagious nature, and, as Delpech* observes, in being followed by a very rapid and singular mode of decomposition in the mortified parts, of which hardly any vestiges appear. No ordinary sloughs are seen ; but, in lieu of them, the surface of the diseased part is covered with a whitish, or ash-coloured viscid matter, which exhibits at particular points specks of blood. This case is now well known among surgeons by the name of hospital gangrene.] PROGNOSIS IN MORTIFICATION. The prognosis in cases of mortification differs according to the nature and inveteracy of the causes of the disorder, and the possibility or impossibility of diminishing or removing them. Much also depends upon the strength, constitution, and age of the patient; the greater or less importance of the part affected ; the rapid, or slow progress of the disease; and its extent. Great prostration of strength; a low, rapid, fal- tering pulse ; a stomach which can retain neither food nor medicine ; and bowels much disordered with diarrhoea ; espe- cially when joined with coma and delirium, are symptoms which leave little or no hope of recovery. As it is impossible to understand the present subject, without taking a separate view of each different species of mortification, I shall next endeavour to fulfil this task with as much brevity as is consistent with truth and perspicuity. MORTIFICATION FROM VIOLENT AND INTENSE DEGREES OF INFLAMMATION. I. In the account which has been given of inflammation mortification was specified as one of its occasional termina- tions. This unpleasant occurrence is not, however a verv common consequence of phlegmonous, or healthy, inflamma- tion, in a sound constitution ; except when the exciting causes * Precis des Maladies reputees Chirurgicales, t. i. p. 75. t In addition to the books enumerated in the Surgical Dictionary as con- taining useful information on this interesting disorder, I must not omit to men tion Hennen's Observations on some Important Points in the Prartiro f Military Surgery, p. 226, he. 8vo. Edinb. 1818.; and Blackadder's « obwr vations on Phagedena Gangrenosa, 8vo. Edinb. 1818.