Contributions to aural surgery / [W.R. Wilde].

  • William Wilde
Date:
1844-1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to aural surgery / [W.R. Wilde]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    When zinc or copper is employed, the preparations I find most suited are theLiq. AluminisComp. and the Aquae Sappherinae, or Liq.Cupri Ammonio-sulphatis, in like proportions with the lead lotions. Where the discharge is foetid, the chloride of lime lotion used in the morning is of use, being slightly astringent, and getting rid of the disagreeable smell. With regard to cleanliness, or, in other words, to syringing, so very much depends upon it, that the surgeon never can sufficiently impress its importance Upon the patient or the attendants. In simple mucous discharge without polypus, granulations, or affec¬ tions of the deep-seated structures, it is the chief part of the treatment; and yet how difficult to have it performed regu¬ larly ! Allowing the discharge to accumulate in the meatus is undoubtedly one of the principal causes that perpetuates otor- rhoea in any of its forms. When the meatus becomes a secreting cavity it in many respects resembles a fistula, and the longer it has existed the more difficult it is to heal; and this, its fistu¬ lous character, itis, which,especially in a narrow7 meatus, promotes the continuance of a slight thin discharge, even long after the granulations or other producing causes have been removed. The action of the external air, therefore, upon this secreting surface, similar to what it experienced in health, can never be too much observed. Towards the contrary, however, there is a very general prejudice, for in two-thirds of the cases of otorrhoea which I am called on to treat, I find the orifice of the meatus filled full of cotton, or from some supposed virtue in its colour, jblack wool, which, if treatment be employed, is invariably returned after each syringing. During the summer, I w7as consulted on ac¬ count of a discharge from the ears of Master C., aet.3J. It was then of two years’ standing, and was thin and whey-like. He had been under medical treatment during the entire disease ; gene¬ rally made use of syringing, and an astringent w'ash ; never ceased to take tonic mixtures and aperient powders, and had been twice at the sea. On examination, I found the auditory pas¬ sages converted into secreting cavities, but without fungus, gra-
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