On a variety of false aneurism / [Read to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, March 8th, 1842].

  • Liston, Robert, 1794-1847.
Date:
[1842]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a variety of false aneurism / [Read to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, March 8th, 1842]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nuded by the extension and pressure of the purulent deposit. The requisite supply of blood to the coats of the vessels is thus diminished or entirely cut off, and as a consequence, ulceration and sloughing, with perforation fnom without, ulti¬ mately occur. This has happened in some in¬ stances before the matter had wrought its way to the surface, and before any opening had been made by the surgeon. In other cases, again, the vessel has given way some time after the pus had been evacuated. In the cases which have come under my notice, the abscess has lain beneath the vessel, which has been pushed forwards upon the cyst, and put very much upon the stretch. This stretching of the vessel, together with the natural tendency of purulent matter to the surface, may so far account for the giving way of its parietes. Under any cir¬ cumstances such an occurrence as the perforation of a large artery by ulceration is very alarming, and calls for the best directed and most energetic efforts of the attendants to prevent an immediately fatal result. But the existence of a communication be- between a large vessel and the cyst of an unopened abscess, it may readily be conceived, cannot always be easily ascertained. The history and progress of the swelling, indeed, its situation, form, &c., will all generally be very different from those of a true aneurism ; still there may be no signs, or if any, very slight ones, of the existence of a communication with an arterial trunk. In cases of large ab¬ scesses, the contents of which have been partially b 2