A text-book of electricity in medicine and surgery for the use of students and practitioners.

  • Poore, George Vivian, 1843-1904.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of electricity in medicine and surgery for the use of students and practitioners. 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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    and penetrated the walls of the sac and the left pleura, on a level with the middle of the anterior edge of the compressed lung. The left pleura contained a considerable quantity of bloody serum and recent blood clots. The other organs of the body were healthy.' Dr. Anderson thus records his opinion as to the best mode of operating :—' To sum up, then, although further experience on my own part, and upon that of others, may tend to modify my opinions on this subject, I am in favour of using a battery with large cells, of employing a weak current, of using one or more needles, insulated with vulcanite at that part which penetrates the skin and walls of the sac, and of connecting these needles in every case with the positive pole of the battery.' [No mention is made in this case of the amount of corro- sion of the needles. We should have thought eight cells hardly sufficient to cause electrolytic action in the face of such great resistance. The pain was probably caused by the big plates.] Case XXXIII. Mr. Holmes' Case of Innominate Aneurism. (' Lancet,' vol. ii., 1872).—A man, aged 50. An aneurism of the innominate artery. Constitutional treatment had been tried with no success. The simultaneous ligature of subclavian and carotid was of little use in staying the disease. The rupture of sac being imminent, galvano- puncture was had recourse to. Four needles were inserted ; they were used alternately as positive and negative pole, according to Cinicelli's method. Current.—Ten to twenty-five cells of Foveaux's battery. Duration.—Twenty-five minutes. A change of needles every five minutes. Besult.—Arterial blood jetted freely on withdrawal of needles. The tumour decreased in size for two days, then increased; diffuse inflammation occurred in and around the sac, and he died.