A treatise on the operation of lithotomy. In which are demonstrated the dangers of operating with the gorget, and the superiority of the more simple operation with the knife and staff. Illustrated by plates / by Robert Allan.

  • Allan, Robert, 1778-1827.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the operation of lithotomy. In which are demonstrated the dangers of operating with the gorget, and the superiority of the more simple operation with the knife and staff. Illustrated by plates / by Robert Allan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    71/100 (page 59)
    bleeding generally proves fatal; and if it can be stopped at all, it must be by compression. When the operation has been protracted, it frequently lessens, and sometimes ceases; but five or six hours after the patient has been laid in bed, and when the increased and inflammatory action of the neighbouring arteries takes place, it returns with double fury. If from the quantity of blood on the floor, from the profusion of the hemorrhagy, or the depth of the bleeding vessel, the sur¬ geon should .imagine this artery to be wounded, before he leaves his patient, he should insert into the wound a piece of firm sponge, with a large canula passed through its centre. The pro¬ perty of the sponge is to swell and make a firmer compression, in proportion as blood escapes * from the vessel; and the use of the canula is to allow a free passage to the urine. When the patient has been laid in bed, he should have a large opiate ; and it frequently happens, from the sleepless and miserable days and nights he has already undergone, that he falls into rest, and sleeps soundly for many hours ; when he awakes, he feels comparatively easy ; and if the opera¬ tion has not been protracted, if the incision in the prostate has been free, the stone small and easily extracted, he often recovers without one untoward symptom, as from any of the lesser operations of surgery. However, this does not always happen ; sometimes a few hours after the operation he feels a sharp pain in the region of the bladder, and the urine does not pass by the wound ; the surgeon should in this case insert his finger, when the urine will often flow upon withdrawing it, and if he feels coagula of blood in the cavity of the bladder, he should wash them out with injections of tepid water, thrown in by means of a glyster-bag and pipe ; as coa¬ gulated blood excites the same spasmodic pain in the bladder after the operation of lithotomy,