Second memoir on excision of the knee-joint : to which is appended a remarkable example of the power of operative surgery in saving the same articulation / by Richard G.H. Butcher.

  • Butcher, Richard G. H., 1819-1891.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second memoir on excision of the knee-joint : to which is appended a remarkable example of the power of operative surgery in saving the same articulation / by Richard G.H. Butcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ment of the patient after excision, and the necessity for a very abundant supply of stimulants and sedatives, proportioned to the age and habits of the person—nutritive diet being given according to the powers of assimilation. I again advert to the enormous quantities of wine and opium which I prescribed myself, and with the best success. One word more, for the safety of the patient—the operating surgeon must not lose sight of the case; to him is intrusted the life of the individual: he should have the deepest interest in its success. As a stimulus to others for exertion, and as an evidence of what may be achieved by the operation of excision of the knee- joint, I shall state the impression produced upon an impartial judge, the Irish correspondent of the Medical Times and Gazette, upon seeing the man, whose case I have recorded in the early part of this paper, and whom I exhibited at the first meeting, this session, of the Surgical Society of Ireland. “Mr. Butcher made an exceedingly instructive and inte¬ resting communication on the subject of excision of the knee- joint, and illustrated the efficacy of the operation, not only by a series of very beautiful casts, drawings, and preparations, which were laid upon the table, but by the production of a man on whom he had operated three years previously, and whose ap¬ pearance of rude health, combined with the trifling amount of the deformity left, and of the impairment of his power of loco¬ motion, was the best proof of the complete success of the pro¬ ceeding to which he had been subjected. The idea of a stiff joint is almost necessarily associated with that of rigid and awkward powers of motion ; but in the present instance, it was remarked by all who were favoured with the opportunity of seeing the man who had been operated on, that he had acquired not only a free, but even a graceful, movement of his legs. He jumped upon a chair and down again, walked across the room, and readily took off the laced boot and stocking which he wore; in short, it was difficult to perceive which was the leg from which the knee-joint had been excised, without a close exami¬ nation, so as to see the deep cicatrix left”a. It is with great satisfaction and pride I have received from Mr. Fergusson, the distinguished surgeon of London, whose name is so intimately identified with this subject, and, indeed, with all the improvements of modern surgery, the following letter:— a Medical Times and Gazette, December 27, I860, p. 650. F 2