On severe cold or congelation as a remedy of disease / by James Arnott.

  • Arnott, James (James Moncrieff), 1794-1885.
Date:
[1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On severe cold or congelation as a remedy of disease / by James Arnott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    taneous diseases have yielded to congelation so speedily as almost, with respectat least to some of them, to suggest another explanation of its modu3 operandi. Had the cases of prurigo so treated been depend¬ ent, like scabies, upon the presence of perasitic animals, their speedy and permanent cure would be easily explained by the sudden extinction of the life of these animals by the cold. A most distressing attack of prurigo pudendi was completely subdued by two congelations, each of about thirty seconds duration, after a prussic acid lotion, and other routine applications, had been tried in vain. Congelation to the degree which has been specified, may be produced by the commou frigorific mixture of ice and salt; though for particular purposes, one of greater power might be prepared. The easiest mode of using the frigorific is, to dip a piece of ice into salt, and then apply it closely to the part. Con¬ gelation will be thus produced in half a minute. When the surface to be frozen is irregular, a little pounded ice and salt may be placed on a rag, or on a flat bit of sponge; or the mixture may be confined to the part by a deep ring or bottom¬ less cup made of gut';a-percha or bees’-wax, or by means of a thin bladder, each being provided with a small tube to carry off* the warmer brine as the ice dissolves. The ap¬ plication of ice or very cold water to the skin is painful, but the se¬ verer cold of a frigorific mixture immediately benums the part. It has been applied to a carious tooth, an inflamed and ulcerated mouth from mercurial ptyalism, and an irritable ulcer, without causing pain; but when the congelation commences, there is, for a few seconds, an uneasy sensation of contraction, proportion¬ ate to its degree. In the case of ptyalism referred to (a patient of the Brighton Dispensary, who had been deprived of sleep for two nights by the affection of the mouth), there was no return of pain, except in mastication, after one application of the frigorific, which was sufficiently powerful to blanch the lower lip as it flowed over it. As the prevalent erroneous notion that congelation of the animal tex¬ tures must in every instance produce either violent reaction or gangrene, will probably prove some impedi¬ ment to the reception of this impor¬ tant therapeutic agent, it may be well to direct the attention of such as would object to it on this account, to the vast difference betweea intense cold acting for a long period on the extreme parts of the body where the circulation of blood is never vigorous, and cold applied for a very short period to parts surrounded by, or overlaying other parts, where the circulation is vigorous, and ready to re-animate the portion in which it has ceased. There is as great a differ¬ ence between the cases as would exist between that of opium taken in unlimited quantity by a feeble child, and when taken in a suitable dose by an adult. I have now em¬ ployed congelation nearly a hundred times for anaesthetic and remedial purposes, without its being followed^ in a single instance, by any inju¬ rious effect. Even if the congela¬ tion be kept up for several minutes, there is no worse consequence than a slight congestion, with redness, of a few days’ continuance. As respects the employment of severe cold for the production of local anaesthesia, it may be remarked that, although a fatal result now and then from the use of chloroform may not be thought a sufficient ob¬ jection to its use, and although the intoxication or loss of consciousness during its action may be only deem¬ ed a slight inconvenience, still the facilitating of the healing process, by the prevention of an injurious degree of inflammation, ought, I think, to entitle the application of cold to a preference in the great majority of surgical operations. 65, Grand Parade, Brighton, llth Nov., 1848.