The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes.
- Timothy Holmes
- Date:
- 1868
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
514/700
![yet the general health is not so far affected as to preclude recovery from so severe an operation—primary amputation at the hip-joint is admissible. The enumeration, however ? of the necessary preliminary conditions is enough to show how rarely the opportunity of performing such an operation will occur. I have never myself performed it, though I have twice proposed its performance; but I had the opportunity of assisting my colleague, Mr. H. Lee, in a case which is described in the first volume of the St. Georges Hospital Re])orts, p. 147 ; and which proved entirely successful. Pelvic abscess existed, but was easily evacuated by perforating the acetabulum. Secondary, As a secondary operation, I have twice removed the limb i. e. after excision, after unsuccessful excision. In both cases the motive of the operation was osteomyelitis of the femur; acute in the unsuc- cessful case,* and complicated with pyaemia; chronic in the case in which the patient recovered (see p. 401). There are, then, a very few cases in which the question of amputation may, in my judgment, be considered. I need hardly say, how very seldom such a subject would even be broached. * This was an attempt to carry out Professor Fayrer's suggestion (Indian Annals, Oct. 1865), to stop the onset of pysemia by removing the inflamed bone, in which it finds its starting-point: but I interfered too late. The patient rallied well from the operation, but died from secondary abscesses in the pleura and lung.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20416325_0514.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
