Observations on cleft palate and on staphyloraphy / by W. Fergusson.

  • Fergusson, William.
Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on cleft palate and on staphyloraphy / by W. Fergusson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    OBSERVATIONS ON CLEFT PALATE, AND ON STAPHYLORAPHY. By W. FERGUSSON, Esq., F.R.S., PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON. _ Received November 23rd—Read December 10th, 1844. \From Transactions of Medico-Chirurgical Society. Vol. xxviii.] The subjects to which the following observations refer, have attracted considerable attention among surgeons during the last five-and-twenty years, since Graefe and Roux in Europe, and Warren in America, showed that the congenital deformity, might be successfully treated on prin¬ ciples similar to those which guide the practitioner in the manage¬ ment of hare-lip. It seems to me doubtful, however, whether our own countrymen have displayed equal zeal with our continental and transatlantic brethren in this department of surgery. It is true that most of our modern surgical authorities have taught the operation of staphyloraphy, and also that it has been performed frequently in dif¬ ferent parts of Britain. Yet since it was first done in England by Mr. Alcock, in 1821, it cannot be said that the amount of either individual or collective experience on this proceeding is in just proportion to that acquired by surgeons in other parts of the world. It is known that more than two years ago, the distinguished author of the operation, Roux, had performed it upwards of one hundred times, with a most satisfactory amount of success,—two-thirds of the simple cases, and one third of those which were complicated, having derived benefit from the proceeding. In 1843, Dr. Mutter, of Philadelphia, had operated twenty- one times upon the soft and hard palate, and out of this number “ had failed to relieve the patient but in two cases and up to the same year. Dr. J. Mason Warren, of Boston, had treated fourteen cases, in thirteen of which he had obtained most signal advantages from his judicious attempts to close the fissure by the operation in question. I am not aware that equal success has been achieved by any surgeon in these islands ; and as far as my own personal experience extends the results have been, up to a recent date, so unsatisfactory that I have had little confidence in recommending the operation. The condition of congenital defective palate, and the various opera¬ tions which have been proposed to remedy such an evil, have not, so far as I am aware, been brought under the notice of this Society. The names of Graefe, Roux, Warren, Dieffenbach, Brodie, Guthrie, Liston, Bushe, Cusack, and Crampton, guarantee that the subjects have been