Surgical observations, with cases and operations / by J. Mason Warren.

  • Warren, Jonathan Mason, 1811-1867.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical observations, with cases and operations / by J. Mason Warren. 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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    rangular depressed portion — extending up towards the vertex — was elevated. Another portion, driven under the adjacent bones, was removed. The rough edges of bone were smoothed off with Hey's saw. Cold-water dressings were applied to the wound. He was kept under strict diet, very carefully watched, and recovered completely. Ten years afterwards he entered the army, when he suffered the first inconvenience from his former injury, concussions of cannon producing such a stunning effect upon the brain as to cause vertigo, and ultimately obliged him to quit the service. Case II. — Extensive Fracture of the Base of the Skull, and Rupture of the Opposite Side of the Brain. Death after ten days. Remarkable Absence of Symptoms indi- cative of so severe an Injury.— May 18, 1858, a woman was brought into the Hospital, and died after a few days, with very deceptive symptoms. A week before, while reaching out of a third-story window, she lost her balance, and fell, first upon a shed, and thence into the street. She was taken up insensible, but soon recovered herself sufficiently to speak, though inco- herently. She was supposed at first to be laboring under the effects of opium, which she was in the habit of taking freely, and a large bit of which was found in her pocket. When brought into the Hospital, a wound was discovered over the right parietal bone ; but the finger, being passed in, could detect no fracture. The head was carefully examined in every direc- tion ; but no fracture could be found. The patient exhibited signs of concussion, but none of compression, of the brain. There was no vomiting, no dilatation of the pupils, no bleeding from the ear. She was uneasy and restless, like a person under the influence of spirit, to which, and opium, her symptoms were mainly attributed. She gradually improved, and, after a day or two, got out of bed to search the drawer of the table for the opium which had been taken out of her pocket. On the tenth day after the injury, when she seemed much better, and answered the questions of the nurse coherently, a friend made her a visit, and brought her a bit of opium. The same night she suddenly died.