A manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners.

  • Christopher Heath
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    190/256 (page 166)
    IGG Fractured Inioer jaw, iu hospital pi'actice, is gene- rally the result of a blow with the fist, and seldom of a fall, though tlie patient may assign the latter as tlie cause of the accident. Care should be talcen to ex- amine all the teeth, to see that a tooth has not dropped into tlie fissure between the broken portions, as sometimes happens, particularly in the molar region. If the fracture is near the symphysis, it is advis- able to pass a |)iece of stout silk round the adjacent teeth,so as to bind the fracture together, but this cannot be aceomplislied far back iu the mouth. The wedges of cork, &c., which are recommended, are, as far as my ex|jerienee goes, unnecessary and useless, since they cannot long be kept in position, and then roll about the mouth, to the patient's great annoyance. It has been recommended to mould pasteboard or gutta ])ercha to the jaw externally, so as to form a splint for it, but in tlie majority of cases the following baud- age alone will be found quite sufiicient and satisfactory treatment. A bandage, three inches wide and a yard long, should have a slit four inches long cut in the centre of it, an inch from the edge, and the ends of the bandage should be split to within a couple of iuches of the former slit, thus forming a four-tailed bandage with a hole in the middle. The central slit can now be adapted to the chin, the narrow portion going in front of the lower lip and the broader beneath the jaw; and the two tails corresponding to the upper part of the bandage are tlien to be tied round the nape of the neck, while the others are crossed over them and carried over the top of the head.* Fractured ribs are often very difficult of accurate diagnosis, especially if the patient is fat; and in cases of doubtful injury to the thorax, it is as well, there-