A system of practical surgery / by William Fergusson.

  • William Fergusson
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of practical surgery / by William Fergusson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/878 (page 18)
    made on the surface at the beginning and end of the wo™d (which merely causes pain to the patient, without being of any advantage the operation), but a fair cut is effected through the skin, which is fully available for the purpose of reaching the subjacent parts. p portion to its extent, which latter may vary from the smallest lmagi able length to twelve inches or more. , Occasionally, such a wound may be advantageously made bypinch- ing up the skin between the fore and middle finger o . ’ then thrusting the knife through both layers at once, and_ cutting out wards : indeed, when the skin is very loose, this is perhaps the manoeuvre :-as in the removal of small tumours, or the operation for crural hernia, when the integuments have not become inflame , firmly adherent to the parts underneath. the The semilunar incision (fig. 24) is in almost as ^ the one above described. It is made by carrying the km in a luna e direction, as shown in the figure, with similar movements of the wr st and the same care that the whole thickness of the skin is divided, the convexity being in any direction which may be deemed best. Fig. 24. Fig. 25. When a large extent of the subjacent parts must be exposed, a crucial incision (fig. 25) may be made by which four portions or flaps of skin may be marked out; or wounds may be devised after the form of different^letters, ouch as figs. 26, 27, 28, and 29, with the point, at Fig. 27. Fig. 28. Fig. 29. the side, uppermost, or in any other convenient place, whereby one flap or more can be shaped out, elevated by dissection, and replaced after the operation is accomplished. These, it will be perceived, are merel) simple incisions meeting each other at certain angles. When it is necessary to remove a portion of integument, as m t extirpation of a diseased mamma, or large tumour, an ellipsis (fig. dO) may be described, by two semilunar incisions, and the parts within the7figure removed with the disease. Either of the figures here ex- hibited may be selected, in accordance with the condition of the skin.