Surgical observations : being a quarterly report of cases in surgery, treated in the Middlesex Hospital, in the cancer establishment, and in private practice : embracing an account of the anatomical and pathological researches in the School of Windmill Street / by Charles Bell.

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical observations : being a quarterly report of cases in surgery, treated in the Middlesex Hospital, in the cancer establishment, and in private practice : embracing an account of the anatomical and pathological researches in the School of Windmill Street / by Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    cordia, darting pains, and convulsive fits. Or the patient has eruptions on the face, indicative of dis- order in the stomach, with pain and weight there; \ or the catamenia are irregular, the pulse small, the feet cold with craving of the stomach, and con- stipation of the bowels. Even in adult males we meet with spasmodic difficulty of deglutition, coming suddenly in the middle of a meal. The food is retained for some time with a painful distention of the tube, before it is permitted to pass into the stomach, or it is rejected by a kind of rumination. When authors speak of a spasm continuing for days, or during months, they surely mistake the paralysis for the spasm of the tube. Thus the case of Mathews, in Dr. Monro’s valuable work [on the Morbid Anatomy of the Gullet, Stomach, and Intestines] was a case of paralysis. 1 attended the process of her feeding, and saw the dissection ; the tube had resumed its function previous to her death, and the appearances were quite natural. The next consideration I shall offer is, that in obstruction of the oesophagus, from a cause per- manent in its nature, there is always more or less attending spasm. Hence, in the case of Nichols, although the cause was permanent, the symptoms varied ; so they did in the case of Terry. There- fore, in considering what is to prove beneficial in spasmodic difficulty of swallowing, we are pre- paring ourselves to alleviate the suffering, from causes in their nature incurable, or which are re-