Historical notices on the occurance of inflammatory affections of the internal organs after external injuries and surgical operations / by William Thomson, M.D.

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical notices on the occurance of inflammatory affections of the internal organs after external injuries and surgical operations / by William Thomson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of injury of the head, it will be proper to take some view of the explanations of this phenomenon which have at different times been proposed. The explanation offered by Ambrose Pare need not detain us long. Nature, according to him, offended by the great severity of the blow, withdraws her powers and virtues, viz., the blood and spirits, from all parts of the body to the heart and liver, in the latter of which viscera, they, in consequence of their superabundance, ex- cite fever and phlegmonous abscess. La cause de ce peut estre que nature se sentant offensee par grande vehemence du coup, col- lige et retire a son secours ses forces et vertus de toutes les parties du corps (qui sont le sang et les esprits) vers le coeur et le foye; ainsi que voyons en peur et crainte, e adoncques fait inflammation au foye, &c. Ou si tu aimes mieux dire auec Monsieur de la Corde, que nature succumbant sous le faix du mal vient a renuoyer une partie de ceste matiere purulente auec le moins d'incommodite qu'il se peut au foye par les veines: et qu' ainsi soit, tous ceux ausquels une aposteme se fait au foye le cerveau blesse, meurent.— Ambrose Pare, CEuores, Lib. xvi.,chap. xii., folio edit., Lyons, 1652, p. 229. Pigray attributes the formation of abscesses in the liver and mesentery, in cases of wounds of the head, to the sympathy and association of parts, on account of the nerve coming from the sixth conjugaison. If the abscess be in the mesenlery, it may be dis- charged by the intestines; if in the liver, it produces continued fever and death. Ballonius, though he does not seem to have been quite sure whether the phenomenon ever actually takes place, thought that in case it does, he could furnish an explanation of it. He rejected the opinion of some, that the pus spreads from the brain to the liver by continuity of membrane; and, taking for the foundation of his theory the observation of Galen, that, in injuries of the brain and its membranes, the secretion of bile is greatly increased, he con- cluded, that, if the evacuation of this increased quantity of bile be obstructed, it will stagnate in the concave part of the liver, and there produce inflammation and abscess. He deduces as a practi- cal rule, from this theory, the propriety of administering purga- tives in cases of injury of the head, to carry off the superabundant bile. Observavi saepissime, says de Marchettis, «quod quando in his yulneribus (capitis), collum incipit dolere, parte potissimum postica, et laterali, tunc materia purulenta delabitur ad thoracis et abdominis cavitatem, quae longiori mora cum pulmones, turn pleuram, aliquas nempe ipsorum partes erodit, ex quibus multa sanies emanat, quas postmodum ad abdomen defluit, cum jecoris et lienis Jabe, in quibus varias pustulas excitat; quibus disruptis, pennde ac ex pulmonibus, et pleura, ifa et ex his materia puru- lenta effluit; quanquam hujus observationis ignari, existiment, ab- scessus, obortos in his partibus, quorum rationepatientes moriuntur,