Intestinal anastomosis : with the report of a case / by Frederick Holme Wiggin.

  • Wiggin, Frederick Holme, 1853-
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Intestinal anastomosis : with the report of a case / by Frederick Holme Wiggin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    points, and as one brilliant result after another is reported at the meetings of societies and in the medical press, we allow ourselves to believe that procedures which formerly required much experience and technical skill, now, by means of these happy discoveries, can be as readily and safely performed by the surgical novice as by the surgeon of ex- perience. Unhappily, we are too often kept in ignorance of the unsuccessful work of our brethren, and it is only by some disaster of our own that we are made aware of some error which might have been avoided had we known that a similar mishap had already befallen some colleague. To be warned of danger is to be able to avoid it. It is by a careful study of the causes of our occasional failures, as well as of our successes, that present defeat is turned into future victory. It was soon after the disastrous ending of what might have been a brilliant result that I was invited to come be- fore you at this time, and although it would have been more agreeable to record the successful termination of a case of unusual importance and interest, its narration and analysis may prove of greater instructive value. On May 31, 1894, I was called to see M. L. C., a married woman, aged thirty-four years. Her menstruation began in her sixteenth year, and was of the regular type, without pain. She had had three miscarriages. Fifteen years ago she had an attack of peritonitis. She had been very costive, and had had attacks of colic from time to time. She had not been so well as usual during the week preceding the present illness, and for several days had had pain in the right side of her abdomen whenever she had taken a long breath. She had taken several doses of cathartic medicine the day previous and again on the morning of the 31st, but without the desired result. About half an hour before I reached her, and shortly after she had taken her lunch, she was seized with violent colicky pains in the lower abdomen. 1 found her im collapse, her bodily temperature being 95*5° and