Surgery : its theory and practice / by William Johnson Walsham.

  • William Walsham
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgery : its theory and practice / by William Johnson Walsham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    INFLiUilSIATION. cocci, tlioiigli often found in putrefying fluids are, like tlie bacilli, not thought to cause putrefaction. Among the pathogenic species may be mentioned those found in acirte abscesses, beils, erysipelas, gonorrhoea, acute necrosis, osteomyeUtis, septictemia, and pya?mia. SiGXS AJXD SYMPTOMS of inflammation. These may bo divided into the local and the constitutional. The local signs are the well-known redness, heat, pain, and swell- ing, to which may be added disturbance or alteration of fimction. Except in a tjqjical case, these signs are not all necessarily present; on the other hand the presence of one or more is not always indicative of inflammation. The redness is due to the dilatation of the small veins and cajiiharies, and increased flow of blood to tho i^art; the dai'ker patches over the general surface to the escape of red corpuscles. The redness varies according to the intensity of the inflammation, being bright in the acute, and dull in the chi'onic variety, and generally assumes a livid hue when suppuration is about to occur. It may sometimes be absent in inflammation of non-vascular tissues, although present in the vascular area around. It more or less disappears after death. The increased heat is now genei'allj held to be due merely to a greater flow of blood through the part, and not to any genei'ation of heat in the part itself, as the blood coming from it is never hotter than the blood in tho loft ventricle of the heart. The inflamed part, however, Joels intensely hot and l)urning to the ])atient, although tho thermometer shows little actual increase of heat. The }>aiii, which is due to pressure upon or the stretch- ing of the terminal nerve-twigs by the dilated blood- vessels and by the exudation, varies in intensity and character, and is ncaidy always increased b}'' pressui'e and by the dc])endent ])ositi()n. It is of a sbibliing character in serous membi'anos, aching in bono, throbbing when pus is aliout to form, moi'e intense when occurring in organs where but slight stretching can occur, as the globe of the eye or tho testicle, and less int(nise in iiarts like the axilla where tho tissues are loose. Jn the eye, in place of ])ain, thor(3 may be fla-shes of light; in tli(! ear, noise. Tho pain is sometimes reflectcMl or transnutted through the nerves to other ])arts or organs. Thi) swellwhich is caused iiartly by tho increased quantity of blood in tlu; inflaniod tmv.x. and i)artly by the exudation of leucocytes and serum, is, as might be expected,
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