A manual of minor surgery and bandaging : for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners / by Christopher Heath.

  • Christopher Heath
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of minor surgery and bandaging : for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners / by Christopher Heath. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/400 (page 27)
    The instrument may then be conveniently employed for irrigating or cleansing wounds, especially about the nose or mouth, or may be used for feeding helpless patients, either by suction through the teat, or by the siphon action. HcBmorrhayefrom the rectum, if venous, is generally the result of gorged hsemorrhoidal veins, and may be treated by enemata of cold water, or some astringent decoction such as the Decoctum Quercus, or Tinct. Hamamelidis, f 5 ] in three ounces of cold water. If arterial and severe, the bleeding point may be touched with nitrate of silver or the actual cautery through a speculum, the rectum being afterwards cai'efully plugged with lint, to which a string should be attached to prevent its getting out of reacli. Careful after- treatment will be requisite to relieve the loaded con- dition of the vessels, and probably an operation for the cure of the piles. Hiemorrhage from the bowel in children is not infrequently caused by a polypus in the rectum, which will require removal befoi'e the atFection will be cured. Hcemorrliage from the bladder, if in large quantity, may result from vascular tumour, or if slight, from the presence of a stone. The injection of cold water througli a catheter will generally suffice, the instru- ment being retained in the urethra, so as to allow any blood which may flow to escape at once, and not coagu- late in the bladder. In severe cases, weak astringent solutions may be injected, and ice be placed in the rectum and about the pubes. The internal adminis- tration of (iallic Acid and Tincture of Iron may be employed in these cases, but the most eftectual remedy is turpentine in ten-minim doses suspended in muci- lage. An early opportunity should be taken to ascer- tain the presence of a tumour or calculus by means of the sound ; and if one exist, the patient had better be at once admitted into the hospital, or very possibly.