Lister Centenary Exhibition at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum : Handbook 1927.

  • Wellcome Historical Medical Museum.
Date:
1927]
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Credit: Lister Centenary Exhibition at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum : Handbook 1927. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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India-rubber Drainage Tubes (contd.) rubber tubing of a Richardson's spray producer that I had used for local anaesthesia at the operation, I cut holes in it and attached knotted silk threads to one end, so improvising a drainage tube. This I put to steep for the night in a strong watery solution of carbolic acid, and introduced it in place of the lint on changing the dressing next morning. The withdrawal of the lint had been followed by discharge of thick pus as before ; but next morning I was rejoiced to find nothing escape unless it were a drop or so of clear serum. This rapidly diminished, and within a week of the opening of the abscess I was able to take leave of my patient, the discharge from the abscess cavity having entirely ceased.—Collected Papers, vol. II., p. 367. Drainage is provided for by the caoutchouc tubes of Chassaignac. In order to prevent the tube from being pushed in too far, we have two loops of carbolised silk attached to the orifice, each of them knotted at its extremity. The orifice of the tube is placed on a level with the skin, and when the dressing is bound down it gets the purchase on these knotted pieces of silk stretched upon the skin, and so the tube cannot leave its position. If the direction of the tube has to be oblique, we cut the orifice obliquely in proportion, so as to have it perfectly level with the surface. If the tube projects it gets bent and fails to convey the discharge properly. —Dublin Journal of Medical Science, 1879, vol. LXVIIL, p. 104. Catgut Drains. Mr. Chiene, of Edinburgh, suggested some time ago the employment of catgut as a substitute for the caoutchouc tube. He hoped by this means to provide adequate drainage through capillary attraction, and, at the same time, by virtue of the proneness of catgut to absorption, to do away with the necessity for the withdrawal of the drain from time to time, which there is when the caoutchouc tube is used, whether for the purpose of shortening the tube or substituting a small one for a large. Mr. Chiene's anticipations were to a considerable extent realised.— Lancet, 1878, I., p. 6. Combination of Sponge and Drainage Tubes. A sponge wrung out of a strong watery solution of carbolic acid (1 to 20) forms a very valuable aid to the drainage tube in preventing, during the first twenty-four hours, the accumulation of blood in wounds having a considerable cavity, such as those left after the removal of tumours. The wound having been stitched and the drainage tube (or tubes) inserted, a strip of oiled silk protective is laid along the line of incision to keep it moist, and so prevent the sponge from adhering. A soft sponge, large enough to cover the entire cavity of the wound, and purified, as aforesaid, is then applied, and over it a gauze dressing, sufficiently extensive to reach several inches beyond the sponge in every direction. The whole is retained in position by a pretty firm bandage, so as to bring into play the elasticity of the sponge, which keeps the surfaces of the wound in apposition, and, while checking sanguineous effusion, compels that which does occur to escape by the drainage tube, when it is at once sucked up by the sponge as it oozes from beneath the protective.—Lancet, 1875, I., p. 469.