On the treatment of aneurism by compression : with two cases of its successful application / by Patrick Heron Watson.

  • Patrick Watson
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of aneurism by compression : with two cases of its successful application / by Patrick Heron Watson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    On removing the pressure of the weight, I at first imagined the pul¬ sation in the tumour still continued, but more careful examination showed me that the sac was consolidated, and the pulsation corres¬ ponded only to the line of the superficial femoral artery where it ran over the anterior surface of the tumour. The scarf skin was slightly ruffled where the weight had compressed the artery. Compression has been maintained for seventy-two hours in all. The pressure and apparatus removed, and fuller’s earth dusted over the surface. 20tli July.—The tumour rapidly disappearing. The superficial vessels in the groin and abdomen pulsating distinctly. Still com¬ plains of pain down the thigh as far as- the knee. ls£ Aug.—The patient has been out of bed for some days; the tumour can hardly be recognised. A:th Aug.—Dismissed cured. I have brought these two cases of aneurism, treated by compres¬ sion, before the Society, because I believe them to be the first cases in which this method of treatment has been successfully employed in Edinburgh, and because in the treatment of them I have em¬ ployed a new modification of compression by weights, which it appears to me is more easily borne by the patient than any other plan which as completely commands the circulation through the main trunk towards the aneurismal sac. So far as I know, in modern times, compression was never at¬ tempted in this city in the treatment of aneurism, except in three cases by the late Professor Miller. Two of these were cases of pop¬ liteal aneurism, one of axillary aneurism; in all the compression was abandoned for ligature. The apparatus employed by Mr Miller was that of Dr Carte, and leaden weights laid over the trunk of the afferent vessel. I am informed that some years ago a case of pop¬ liteal aneurism occurred in a soldier at Piershill, in which the surgeon, educated in the Dublin school, successfully employed com¬ pression. The apparatus used was that of Dr Carte. I had occasion once, some years since, to make trial of compres¬ sion by Carte’s apparatus with elastic bands in a case of popliteal aneurism in a female, but was forced to abandon its use in conse¬ quence of the suffering experienced by the patient, who, before any¬ thing else was employed, died suddenly from the bursting into the pericardium of a small aortic aneurism situated close to the origin of the right coronary artery. It may, perhaps, seem strange beyond belief that, in a surgical school such as that of this city, the first cases of the successful treatment of aneurism by compression should occur fully twenty-six years after this method of practice became an established procedure in Dublin, and after it has become generally accepted by the whole civilized world. I believe that two causes have chiefly operated to prevent the more general employment of compression in the treatment of
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