On solutions of gun-cotton, gutta percha, and caoutchouc, as dressings for wounds, etc : read before the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society / by J.Y. Simpson, M.D.

  • James Young Simpson
Date:
[1848], [©1848]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On solutions of gun-cotton, gutta percha, and caoutchouc, as dressings for wounds, etc : read before the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society / by J.Y. Simpson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ON SOLUTIONS OF GUN-COTTON, GUTTA PERCHA, CAOUTCHOTJC, AND AS DRESSINGS FOR WOUNDS, ETC. Bead before the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical -Society, By J. Y. Simpson, M.D. F.K.S.E. PROFESSOR OF MIDWIFERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. {From the London Medical Gazette.) [It is only due to Professor Simpson to state that, a subject which has recently attracted great attention—namely, the employment of new adhesive preparations in surgery, was made known by him to the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society in May last. We reprint from a recent number of the Edinburgh Monthly Journal, the following account of his observations and experiments, including those of Mr. Maynard and Dr. Bigelow, in the United States.] At different periods in the history of sur- gery, very different practices have prevailed in regard to the treatment of wounds. At one time, in injuries or incisions of any great extent, the whole sides of the divided or cut surfaces were dressed as separate and distinct wounds ; rnd all chance of immediate union prevented. Slow reunion by suppuration and granulation, or, as the old surgeons termed it, by digesting, mundyfying, and incaming wounds, was alone attempted. Afterwards, however, and yet not without much doubt and opposition,* the practice was introduced of placing from the first the sides and lips of the wound in contact, and * 1 would ask (gravely writes O'Hallornn in 1765), I would ask the most ig^iorant in our pro- fession, whether he ever saw or heard even of a wound, though no more than one inch long, united in so short a time (as three days). These tales are told with more confidence than veracity ; healing by inosculation, by the first intention, by immediate coalescence without suppuration, is merely chimerical, and opposite to the rules of thus allowing nature to produce the sponta- neous adhesion of the whole wound, or as much of its surfaces as will thus adhere. In other words, reunion by the first intention came to be more and more attempted after the discovery of the doctrine of adhesion (as it was termed) was duly made and fully acted on. But no small difference of opinion and practice has prevailed as to the best mode of bringing and retaining in contact the sides of such wounds as are capable of healing by the first intention. A great variety of bandages, plasters, needles, and stitches, have been in- vented for this purpose. And, the propriety or non-propriety of using sutures in prefer- ence to plasters (the sutura cruenta, as it was termed, in preference to the sutura sicca), was at one time a special subject of dispute. Louis, Pibrac, and Young, main- tained that in all, or in almost all, cases, the employment of the suture should be aban- doned as irritating and hurtful. At the present day, both modes of artificial reunion —the sutura cruenta and sicca—are followed by the generality of surgeons ; and often both modes are used simultaneously. It seems not at all improbable, that ano- ther step in advance will betimes be effected, and that surgeons will be enabled to apply to the wound, after its edges are brought in contact, some material or other which, like an artificial plasma, or lute of coagulable lymph, will at one and the same time serve the following purposes :—