Ligature of the subclavian artery, in a case of hemorrhage from the axillary artery / by R.J. Mackenzie.

  • Mackenzie, R. J. (Richard James), 1821-1854.
Date:
[1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ligature of the subclavian artery, in a case of hemorrhage from the axillary artery / by R.J. Mackenzie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EXTRACTED FROM THE J- NORTHERN JOURNAL OF MEDICINE FOR MARCH 1846. Ligature of the Subdaman Artery^ in a Case of Hemorrhage the Axillary Artery. By R. J. Mackenzie, M.D., .C.S.E. The following case appears to me worthy of being placed on re¬ cord, not from the fact of its being one of simple deligation of one of the larger arteries having been followed by a favourable result, but from the interest which attaches itself to it, as an in¬ jury of an unusual nature : and, more especially, I think it may prove of interest, from the fact, that a very small number of cases (amounting only to six or seven) have been recorded, in which a ligature has been placed on the subclavian artery for the purpose of arresting hemorrhage from a direct wound of the axillary artery, and as I believe that the practice to be pursued in similar cir¬ cumstances, woidd still be a matter of considerable doubt in the minds of most surgeons. John Forrester, a married man, of thirty-five years of age, a warehouse clerk, of temperate habits. On the 5th of November 1845, this man, on returning in the evening from his employment, found his children amusing them¬ selves with a red-hot poker, which they had put into the fire, from which it had just been removed as he entered the room. He im¬ mediately snatched the poker with his left hand from the boy who held it, and, in making after the young delinquent to chastise him for his misdemeanour, he stumbled and fell forwards. In trying to save himself from the fall, he stretched out his left hand, which bringing the butt end of the poker to the angle of the room, where the wainscot and floor met, he fell with his whole weight on the red-hot point, which entered the right axilla, im¬ mediately behind the tendon of the great pectoral muscle. from F.R