Contributions to practical medicine and surgery / by James Arnott.

  • Arnott, James, 1794-1885.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to practical medicine and surgery / by James Arnott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The local remedies are intended either to destroy the morbid cells or elementary constituents of the growth with- out injury to the textures containing them, or to destroy both of these at the same time. Of the first kind are long- continued pressure, and short applications of intense cold; of the second, are excision, cauterisation, and intense cold continued for hours. Pressure, when it is made equably by a fluid in the manner proposed by Dr. Neil Arnott, has proved an excel- lent remedy in many cases of cancer. Its effects are thus summed up by Dr. Walshe.* Removal of existing adhe- sions, total cessation of pain, disappearance of swelling in the communicating lymphatic glands, gradual reduction of bulky masses to small, hard, flat patches, or rounded no- dules (which appear, both locally and generally, to be per- fectly innocuous); and, in the most favourable cases, total removal of the morbid production. The application of intense cold for a short period, at in- tervals, is another mode of destroying the elements of the disease without injuring the skin or other surrounding tex- tures. It has been objected to this plan of employing con- gelation in cancer, that its mode of action cannot be satisfac- torily explained; but if proof of its efficacy can be adduced, the want of such explanation is unimportant. It is doubted by no one that bark cures the ague, and that cold cures in- flammation, but we are perfectly ignorant how these cures are effected. Besides the cases which I have myself re- ported, there is indisputable evidence that even a moderate degree of cold will remove cancerous tumours. In the fifth volume of the Transactions of the London Pathological So- ciety, a case of this kind is reported by Mr. Simon, the me- * On the Nature and Treatment of Cancer, 1846.