Remarks on amputation : an essay, submitted to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, when candidate for admission into that body / by Alexander King.
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Remarks on amputation : an essay, submitted to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, when candidate for admission into that body / by Alexander King. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Hal air rushes in at every opening,—a fruitful source of annoyance and indisposition to the inmates. Such a method of ventilation is ill suited for any purpose, hut especially for hospitals, where the condi- tion of the patients requires more than ordinary care. Nurses are sometimes blamed improperly for having the apartments at the hour of visit in a condition which does not please the Surgeon ; although her only duty was to attend the doors and windows, she could not succeed in maintaining a proper temperature or current of air in this very changeable climate by the means at her command,—the opening or shutting of doors and windows;—the error lies in the improper method of ventilation employed. That an opportunity for cleaning and whitewashing this hospital seldom occurs, is almost a corollary on the statements made regarding the crowded state of the wards; all the apartments being already sufficiently full, there is no way of disposing of the patients to have even one renovated at a time, except when there is an immunity from disease, and when this process is least requisite. The cleaning of the wards by scraping the whiting, and carefully washing all the surfaces with hot lime, is of much greater importance in improving the salu- brity, than is generally granted. Howard, in his Lazarettos in Europe, gives a very good illustration of the advantages of the practice :— In addition to what has been said with regard to cleanliness, it may be observed, that when quicklime is slaked in boiling water, and immediately used, it not only destroys vermin, but is found to be one of the strongest anti- septics. In confirmation of this fact, I shall take the liberty of mentioning a remarkable instance of its efficacy in this respect. Dr John Hope, the first physician to the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, informed me in one of my visits there, that two or three years before a putrid fever had prevailed in that hospital, and that one large ward in particular was so deeply infected, as to prove fatal, for some time, to the patients that were lodged in it; but that lime- whiting the walls had eradicated the infection, after washing the wards repeatedly with vinegar had failed of this effect; aud that this salutary practice had been continued ever since.—Howards Lazarettos in Europe (1791), page 118. Until the publication of Dr Lawrie's tables, [See Appendix,] the extent of the mortality in this Infirmary, after amputation, was only known to the Surgeons in attendance, and probably never brought under the notice of the Managers. In a letter addressed to them, by Dr A. D. Anderson, in 1821, the evil consequences resulting from the bad system of ventilation, the neglect of cleanliness of the patients' persons, &c, the want of exercise, and proper dieting, are very](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21969450_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
