A few remarks on tracheotomy : with cases / by T.R. Jessop.

  • Jessop, Thomas Richard, 1837-1903.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A few remarks on tracheotomy : with cases / by T.R. Jessop. 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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    rV FEW EEMAEKS ON TRACHEOTOMY; WITH CASES. Thehk are few occasions for surgical interference where an opportunity is aiforded of exhibiting the benefits to be derived from prompt action in so striking a manner as those on which the surgeon is called upon to perform the operation of tracheo- tomy. Usually, whatever may be the ultimate result, the immediate relief is so apparent that the hopes of all interested are at once raised to the highest pitch. It occasionally happens that lielp comes too late, that the opening into the air-passages is delayed too long, or that, suffocation suddenly taking place, there is not time to obtain the aid of the surgeon befoi'e the patient is dead. I have more than once heard tlie surgeon, on finding that respiration had stopped, and that the heart had ceased to beat, exclaim, as he left the bedside, “ Had I been here five minutes earlier, I might have saved the life by opening the trachea.” One of the cases related in this paper will show the possibility of restoring animation under circumstances which may at first sight seem hopeless. AVe have ceased to be astonished at the remarkable instances recorded (jf life brought back, as it were, to bodies apparently dead from long submersion in water. AVe should hold ourselves blameworthy if we neglected, in any case of drowming, when the lK)dy is known to have been alive half-an-hoiir before, to make diligent use of artificial respiration, and all those other ineans which are now so universally and effectually applied. And when we bear in mind that in many cases of persons suffocated, the conditions are in no way different from those in the drowned, exceftt that the nature of the obstruction in the air-passages requires that an opening in the trachea shall be made—when we bear in mind that in both cases the ])rimary cause of death is