A text-book of diseases of women / by Charles B. Penrose.

  • Penrose, Charles B. (Charles Bingham), 1862-1925.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of diseases of women / by Charles B. Penrose. 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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    out the peritoneum. Such a solution is probably less irritating to the peritoneum than plain water. If the flasks are used for containing the water, it may be boiled in them, and then preserved by plugging with absorbent cotton until required at the operation. The temperature of the water used for abdominal irrigation should be ioo° to 1150 F. Sponges.—In the minor operations about the vagina or uterus the field of operation may be kept clean by irrigation with sterile water or by the use of sponges. Small sponges in holders are commonly used. These sponges, after being washed free of sand and bleached if necessary, may be sterilized by soaking for twelve hours in a solution of bichlorid of mercury (1 : 500). They should then be rinsed in warm water and preserved in a 3 per cent, watery solution of carbolic acid, which should be changed every week. Artificial sponges, or gauze sponges, are the most con- venient in abdominal surgery. They are cheap, and may be destroyed after each operation, and they are very easily and certainly sterilized in the steam sterilizer. Good marine sponges are so expensive that but few ope- rators destroy them after they have been once used. The cleansing and sterilization of such sponges are tedious and uncertain. The gauze sponges answer every purpose. The writer has used gauze sponges exclusively in several hundred ab- dominal operations performed during the last three years. The gauze sponges may be made of various sizes by sewing together about eighteen layers of plain absorbent gauze. The edges of the gauze should be folded in and hemmed to prevent the escape of loose threads in the peritoneum. Some operators use sponges made by wrap- ping absorbent cotton somewhat loosely in gauze. The number of sponges used should always be recorded before the operation. It is advisable to preserve the sponges in sets always of the same number, so that in every case the operator knows that this number, or some