Tetany, and foreign bodies in the stomach : tetany caused by a mass in the stomach, composed of forty metallic articles, weighing one pound, gastrotomy, cured / by James P. Warbasse.

  • Warbasse, James Peter, 1866-1957.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tetany, and foreign bodies in the stomach : tetany caused by a mass in the stomach, composed of forty metallic articles, weighing one pound, gastrotomy, cured / by James P. Warbasse. 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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    STOMACH. TETANY CAUSED BY A MASS IN THE STOMACH, COMPOSED OF FORTY METALLIC ARTICLES, WEIGHING ONE POUND; GASTROTOMY; CURED. BY JAMES P. WARBASSE, M.D., OF NEW YORK, Surgeon to the German Hospital, Brooklyn. In 1869, Kuessmaul and Neumann showed that certain gastric disturbances, notably dilatation of the stomach, bore an etiological relation to tetany. Since that time a sufficient num- ber of cases have been observed and added to the literature, to show that dilatation of the stomach, with or without pyloric obstruction, particularly when associated with abnormal reten- tion and fermentation of food, is a cause of tetany. The cases which have supported this conclusion have also been of im- portance, because they have made possible a more accurate study of tetany, a complex train of symptoms which previously had been confused with tetanus, epilepsy, and other nervous phenomena. The most acceptable theories concerning the cause of these attacks are those which attribute them to autointoxication from fermentation of stomach contents and irritation of nerve end- ings in an already poisoned organism. The characteristic at- tacks of convulsions usually follow an effort of the affected stomach to empty itself. A patient, who has suffered with chronic atony of the stomach, or dilatation from narrowing of the pylorus, and abnormal fermentation of retained food, after an effort at vomiting, or the passage of the stomach-tube, is seized with a convulsive paroxysm similar in some respects to both that of epilepsy and tetanus. A great variety of spasms have been described by different observers. The characteristic attack begins with tetanic spasms of the muscles of the forearm and hand or abdominal muscles, and is rapidly followed by