Volume 1

Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

  • James Paget
Date:
1882-1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    the vein was plainly seen passing over it. It was about eight or ten inches long in the direction of the neck, and about four or five thick. It was loose, not attached but by loose cellular membrane. I made an incision along the neck by the side of the vein to the tumour, and in the separation of the surrounding parts I found that the carotid artery was also on the outside of the tumour. It was very large, about half an inch in diameter ; nor did it con- tract by not allowing the blood to flow into it; rather became flat. Its pulsations were soft; and it was easily compressed, or the blood easily stopped in its passage by the finger. I thought it would be best to tie it up, for fear of accidents, therefore tied a ligature round it; but immediately the horse appeared vastly oppressed, breathed with great difficulty, so much so that I sus- pected that I had tied up with the artery the par vagum. I therefore loosened the ligature, but left it on. He then became more lively, and breathed with ease. I then went on with the operation, and extracted the tumour, and the wound was dressed up. But when we wanted to raise him on his legs, he only raised himself on his fore legs, and did not in the least move the hind ones. It was imagined that he was only cramped from having been flung and tied during the operation, and therefore was obliged to let him lie quiet; but he never moved them afterwards, and he died the next evening. On opening the body and the wound there was nothing to be seen that could in the least account for the loss [of the use] of his hind legs, nor for his death. I took out the piece of carotid artery, with the ligature stiU surrounding it, but loose, to see if I had enclosed the nerve within it; and I found I had, which accounted for those symptoms already mentioned; and I also observed that the carotid artery, which was, when alive, about half an inch in diameter, was now not a quarter, which must have arisen from the stim\ilus of death. The tumour was of a very dark colour; and when cut into and squeezed, a black fluid, exactly like ink, came out on the cut surface. It blackened the water it was steeped in for a considerable time.—Hunterian MS.: Cases and Dissections, No. 86. The nerve and artery mentioned in the foregoing case are pre- served in No. 3879. . A portion of the udder of an almost white cow (a cross between an Ayrshire and a shorthorn). It contains a tumour about three inches in its long diameter and uni- formly black. The skin of the udder is mottled with numerous pigmented blotches.