On abscess and tumours of the orbit. Pt. I / by Spencer Watson.

  • Watson, Sir William Spencer, 1836-1906.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On abscess and tumours of the orbit. Pt. I / by Spencer Watson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    for two or three weeks, when Mr. Salter removed the decayed stumps and carious wisdom tooth in the right upper jaw. l’us then escaped through the alveoli of the molar teeth, the fangs of which were denuded of periosteum at their extremities, and had evidently been lying in the antrum surrounded by pus. Subsequently a large sequestrum of dead bone was removed from the floor of the orbit and the cheek surface of the maxilla, with great amelioration of all the symptoms. Several Hakes of bone escaped at intervals afterwards, and the patient made a good recovery, though with total loss of vision in the eye affected, the optic nerve of which was found by ophthalmoscopic investigation to have undergone complete atrophy. Case 8.—(Mackenzie, Op. Git., p. 965.)—A man, of thirty years of age, was attacked with sudden and violent pain, shooting from the temple to the side of the face and eye. His sight was quite lost, and his cheek swollen. Soon a dis- charge came from the furrow between the lower lid and the conjunctiva ; and on the extraction of a decayed molar tooth a splinter of wood was found attached to its fang, and projecting into the antrum. Pus escaped from the socket; sight was recovered in a few days, and all symptoms subsided. Case 9.—(H. Walton on “ Surgical Diseases of the Eye.”)—A man, of forty-two years of age, had had exopllthalmus of the left side, with impaired vision and occasional paroxysms of pain, and swelling for three or four years. For these complaints he had been treated by the repeated application of leeches to the neighbourhood of the orbit; and it was estimated that 800 leeches had been applied at various times. At length he went into King’s College Hospital, under the care of Mr. Fergusson, and as there was evident pointing of matter at the lower and outer edge of the orbit, a puncture was made there, giving exit to the contained pus. Very soon nervous excitement, delirium, and epileptic fits were succeeded by coma and death. Post-mortem appearances.—No mischief within the cranium. Abscess occupying the outer and lower parts of the orbit, and the orbitar and external aspects of the malar bone, which were carious. Observations.—It is very remarkable that no lesion should have been discovered in the brain. Probably the other internal organs were not examined, as no mention is made of the state in which they were found. The symptoms at once pointed to cerebral lesion, and in the absence of any indication of such being the case, the only rational explanation is that some form of blood-poisoning had occurred. This case, therefore, might he included under the category of pvannic cases ; but in the absence of any evidence of blood poisoning deducible from the appear-