A treatise on diseases of the bones / by Edward Stanley.

  • Edward Stanley
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diseases of the bones / by Edward Stanley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    active; nor until they have sufficiently subsided to allow the issue or seton to be placed near enough to the diseased bone to control the actions within it. The extent and the situation of the counter-irritant are to be determined by the degree of thickness of the soft parts covering the dis- eased bone. When the carpal or the tarsal bones are the seat of disease, a large issue placed directly over them will be likely, from the thinness of their investing soft parts, to aggravate the disease. When, on the other hand, the bones of the hip, or of the shoulder-joint, are the seat of disease, the thickness of their investing soft parts permits the issue to be placed directly over them. The counter-irritant is to be regarded as a controllable disease established on the surface of the limb, in the hope that it will divert the activity of the organic processes from the diseased bone; but that it may have this effect, care is to be taken that the new disease does not extend its sphere of irritation to the old one. It is, moreover, inexpedient to apply a counter-irritant in cases where there is much suppuration from the soft parts around the diseased bone; for here, provided the matter has a free outlet through the surrounding fistulous pas- sages, the discharge issuing through these will afford all the relief to the irritation of the diseased bone that can be obtained by the artificial drain of an issue or seton. The cases which are most benefited by a counter-irritant are those in which the diseased bone is unaccompanied by abscess in the contiguous soft parts, or where the discharge through any fistulous passages that may lead to the dis- eased bone, is so trifling as to afford no adequate relief to the pain and irritation in the adjacent parts.
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