Observations on the causes and treatment of ulcerous diseases of the leg / by J. C. Spender.

  • Spender, John C.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the causes and treatment of ulcerous diseases of the leg / by J. C. Spender. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    importance, were it not for some peculiar conditions frequently connected with the extremities themselves. Every one must have observed that slight wounds or cuts of the leg are often much more' unmanageable than even greater injuries of the same kind occurring on other parts of the surface of the body, and much more apt to run into painful and troublesome sores. It is, indeed, to solve this fact, that recourse has usually been had to the explanation derived from the position or situation of the limb ; for when writers on Surgery assign these conditions of the extremity as the causes which account for the obstinacy of ulcers on the leg, it is not that they overlook the origin of many wounds from external violence, but that they then more particularly refer to their refractory nature. 2. This in a great majority of instances arises, I think, from the other cause which remains to be mentioned. It is a positive and palpable unhealthi- ness in the outer structures of the leg, consisting of a varicose state of the superficial veins, either alone or combined with adventitious deposits, which are most generally the products of such varicose state. Perhaps, however, it will be said, even conceding the truth of this opinion, yet the varicose affection itself results from the dependent position of the limb, and its remoteness from the heart, and therefore the