On a new mode of treatment employed in the cure of various forms of ulcer and granulating wounds / [Frederic C. Skey].

  • Skey, Frederic C. (Frederic Carpenter), 1798-1872
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a new mode of treatment employed in the cure of various forms of ulcer and granulating wounds / [Frederic C. Skey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The mode by which nature heals an ulcer involves three processes. First, the secretion of coagulable lymph*, of a firm consistence, and of an opaque greyish colour. For the purpose of organisation, and rendering them accessible to vessels, they assume small rounded granular forms, of an elevation somewhat less than their transverse diameters, their mean size in health being tolerably uniformly from the sixth to the eighth of an inch. The Second process, which is, however, nearly contem- poraneous with the first, is that of organisation. The blood-vessels may be seen, with a moderately good mag- nifying glass, to be distributed in arborescent forms from the base towards the circumference. Sir EK. Home has de« scribed a healthy granulation to be small, florid, and pointed at the top; and it is indispensable to the healing of the wound or ulcer, that such granulations as Sir E. Home has described should be obtained, otherwise the sore will neither permanently fill up, nor cicatrise. In order that this end may be healthily effected, it is necessary that a co-relation should subsist between the secreting and the organising powers. They must exist in the same degree, and act with the same force, neither * The term “lymph,” I am aware, is indefinite ; and refers, as I con- ceive, rather to the physical than the chemical character of the pro- duct: strictly speaking, we are not warranted in its adoption to this. animal substance, either in a physical or chemical sense. It is more probably either albumen or fibrine. I have, however, retained the term in general use.