Clinical notes on the electric cautery in uterine surgery / by J. Byrne.

  • Byrne, John, 1825-1902.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical notes on the electric cautery in uterine surgery / by J. Byrne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    and zinc plates, each measuring about six by nine inches, and so arranged that the whole could be made to act either as two cells when quantity is desired, or four cells as when greater in- tensity is needed to overcome resistance. If short and heavy, or flattened platina is to be heated, certain binding screws, marked two, are turned down, while those marked four are to be raised; and wdien a long and comparatively thin wire, such as is used for looping purposes, is required, this order of adjustment is to be reversed. By this useful contrivance the apparatus can be made to meet every want, and in my hands it has never failed. As an evidence of its power, moreover, I may state that five inches of number sixteen wire can be made incandescent, and as the elements can be easily raised or lowered by means of a windlass attachment, its management is simple, and as a whole is far superior, in my estimation, to the more clumsy and costly apparatus of Stohrer. With all these attractive features, however, it also is too bulky and heavy to be conveniently portable, and consequently not so well adapted to the requirements of j)rivate as to hospital practice. The quantity of fluid required to bring it into action is three gallons, prepared by dissolving three pounds of bichro- mate of potassa in ten quarts of boiling water, to which, when cool, two quarts of sulphuric acid are to be added. It will be observed from these remarks that, though double- celled batteries, whether composed of the Bunsen or Grove elements, are constant in their action, they possess no other at- tractive characteristic warranting a preference over the more simple and manageable single-flnid arrangements. Indeed, this supposed indispensable quality as to constancy may be con- veniently dispensed with, for it is no more an essential requisite in a battery for surgical purposes, than would be perpetual motion in a time-piece. Authorities on electro-surgery, as a rule, either caution us against the employment of these batteries, simply because they are not continuous in their action, and liable to give out at a critical moment, or furnish such an incorrect description of their modus operandi as to deter many from using them. They seem to entirely forget, however, or at least fail to suggest that there can be no reasonable object whatever in innnersing a battery before its action is called for, or allowing it to remain so unnecessarily long, and during intervals of inspection which ought to and must occur during every important cautery operation. Another very common and mischievous fallacy is to suppose that by disconnecting one or other of the conduct- ing cords, or otherwise breaking the current, as, for example,