Observations on the surgical pathology of the larynx and trachea, chiefly with a view to illustrate the affections of those organs which may require the operation of bronchotomy. Including remarks on croup, cynanche laryngea, foreign bodies in the windpipe, wounds, &c. &c / [William Henry Porter].

  • Porter, William Henry, 1790-1861.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the surgical pathology of the larynx and trachea, chiefly with a view to illustrate the affections of those organs which may require the operation of bronchotomy. Including remarks on croup, cynanche laryngea, foreign bodies in the windpipe, wounds, &c. &c / [William Henry Porter]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Vv have been induced to devote some attention to the subject, with a view of attempting to supply the deficiency. The incertitude that prevails in this branch of surgery must have been appa- rent to every practitioner :—one man bleeds his patient in every disease interfering with re- spiration, another has met with cases where such practice has proved decidedly injurious : in some instances bronchotomy has been fol- lowed by the most splendid success, in other hands it has totally failed. The same uncer- tain variety of treatment will be found in those cases which are scattered through the different periodical publications, and which, though de- ficient in this one respect of pathological accu- racy form the best, perhaps the only sources of information on the subject. It is obvious, then, that this difference in treatmentand success must have some corresponding cause. The wind- pipe, simple as it is in structure and in func- tion, is subject to a variety of morbid affections, the symptoms of which have a strong resem- blance to each other: some of these are remedi- able by medicine, some require manual opera- tion, and many, unfortunately, admit neither of pallation nor of cure. In the course of my at-