A probationary essay on purulent deposits after wounds and operations / submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... October 1833.

  • Balfour, John Hutton, 1808-1884
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A probationary essay on purulent deposits after wounds and operations / submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... October 1833. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the system, poisoning the circulation, and inducing typhoid symptoms, which are rapidly fatal. The vitiation of the circulating fluid in cases of purulent deposition, is indicated by the peculiar yellow co¬ lour of the skin, as well as the change in the pro¬ perties of the blood itself, which is dark-coloured, and does not coagulate. The poisoning of the sys¬ tem is rendered still more probable, by our finding similar symptoms developed in the case of poisoned wounds received in dissection, &C.1 The effects, too, of the injection of pus into the veins of the lower animals, in the experiments of Baglivi, Ma¬ ge ndie, Gaspard, and Dance, would tend to confirm this opinion.2 The pus found in the circulation can undoubt¬ edly in many cases be traced to phlebitis, which has been shown by Arnott and Dance to exist more frequently than we were previously aware. In other cases, again, where, after careful and minute examination, no venous inflammation could be de¬ tected, we must, along with Velpeau and others, have recourse to absorption as the cause. Absorp¬ tion of morbid matters is allowed by most physiolo¬ gists, and the rapidity of the absorption seems to depend much on the depression of the vital ener- 1 Arnott in Medico-Chir. Trans, vol. xv. p. 57. 2 Mag. Jour, de Phys. t. ii. &c.—Arch. Gen, t. xix.