Pulmonary consumption, pneumonia, and allied diseases of the lungs : their etiology, pathology and treatment, with a chapter on physical diagnosis / by Thomas J. Mays.

  • Thomas Jefferson Mays
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pulmonary consumption, pneumonia, and allied diseases of the lungs : their etiology, pathology and treatment, with a chapter on physical diagnosis / by Thomas J. Mays. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    adhesions, and under these circumstances the aspirating needle must be introduced at the spot where the fluid was discovered by the hypodermic needle. It is never safe to assume that the liquid is located anywhere else. If the effusion is purulent, is it best to aspirate or to make an incision and drain the cavity? That aspiration in empy- ema is occasionally successful is true, but the author believes that time is saved by making an early and a free incision. When the empyema is general an incision large enough to admit a good sized drainage tube is to be made into the seventh intercostal space, in the axillary region. Rib sec- tion is, as a rule, unnecessary and if the interspace is not wide enough it is bolter to trephine than to sever a rib for this purpose. The tul>e should just pass into the pleural cavity and nc> more, be sutured to the edge of the wound or have a fixed flange, and its free outside end should be cov- ered with a layer of antiseptic cotton sufficiently thick ta absorb the pus which drains into it. As the discharge dimin- ishes another and a smaller tulx? should be inserted from time to time, and finally be abandoned altogether. The internal medication in effusion of the chest cavity should be supporting in character. Cod-liver oil, syrup of the iodide of iron, of the hypophos]iliites and of the hydriodic acid, quinine and strychnine, as well as a liberal and nutri- tious diet arc to be administered.