Studies in absorption / B.H. Buxton and J.C. Torrey.

  • Bertram Henry Buxton
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies in absorption / B.H. Buxton and J.C. Torrey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    was called “ wash water” and was used for plating out. Im- mediately after washing out, the abdomen was opened and portions of various organs taken out and plated. Having thus given a general survey, it will be necessary to enter more into details in order to understand exactly how the experi- ments were carried out. 1. The washing out. — As soon as the bleeding is finished the rabbit is covered with a sterile cloth and tied tightly down to the operating table by two broad bands passed over the chest and flanks. Through a slit in the cloth a cut is made in the skin of the abdomen and the tissue cleared down to the muscle. A small slit is now made in the muscle and a glass trochar pushed through the slit into the cavity; the trochar being attached to a rubber hose connected with a flask on a shelf above, containing four hundred cubic cen- timeters of salt solution. The salt solution is siphoned into the cavity, an operation which only takes about a minute, the rubber hose detached from the trochar, and the operat- ing table, specially designed for this purpose, turned over so that the rabbit is now abdomen downwards, suspended by the broad bands. Below is a flask into which the contents of the peritoneal cavity are run through the trochar. It takes three or four minutes to empty the cavity, and about three hundred and fifty cubic centimeters can be recovered out of the four hundred run in. The wash water is at once put on ice to prevent any increase of the bacilli and returned to later on. 2. The organs. —The operating table is now turned back so that the animal lies in its original position. The abdo- men is opened, and if there is any urine in the bladder its surface is seared and one cubic centimeter pipetted out. The organs, or suitable pieces of them, are then taken out, but since they have been bathed in a fluid which may con- tain a large number of bacilli it is necessary to sterilize the surface. For this purpose, the pieces as they are taken out are plunged for a moment into boiling water and at once put into a cold chamber. Repeated tests have shown that