The perineum : its anatomy, physiology, and methods of restoration after injury / by Henry O. Marcy.

Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The perineum : its anatomy, physiology, and methods of restoration after injury / by Henry O. Marcy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In June, 1887, at the meeting of the American Medical Associa- tion, Dr. E. W. Cushing, of Boston, in a paper contributed to the Obstetrical Section, reported my method of operation, and gave the result of our experiences in associated work. In this paper, he claims nothing original, refers approvingly to my methods, but states that the use of catgut, as a continuous suture in repair of the perineum, is due to Schroeder. In a very recent publication he writes: “ At the meeting of the American Medical Association, in 1887, I reported my method of operating for ruptured perineum, by joining Schroeder’s system of buried catgut sutures in layers, to Dr. Jenks’s method of splitting the flap, followed by a cure in every case.” As we have seen above, in my paper read before the Obstetrical Section of the American Medical Association, in 1883, and again at the Copenhagen Congress, in 1884, I distinctly mention the use of the continuous animal suture in perineorrhaphy. In the Annals of Surgery, December, 1881, in an editorial upon “ Animal Liga- tures,” I discuss the advantages arising from their use as sutures and the changes which ensue, when autiseptically buried in the tissues. I there advocate the use of the tendon from the kangaroo as a buried suture, taken as a double aud also as an over-and-over continuous stitch. I first used, in 1871,1 the buried animal suture in hernia, and soon after, published the results of a series of physio- logical, experimental studies upon animals, undertaken to demon- strate the advantages of the buried suture. A resume of these studies may be found in the New England Monthly Medical Journal, June, 1883, in a paper upon “The Animal Ligature.” “ For the same reason, in the use of the deep suture, we have sewed the catgut or tendon with the over-and-over stitch, or the ends from opposite directions through the same open- ing:, after the manner of the shoemaker. The continuous suture has a double advantage. It reduces the number of knots to one or two, which is a considerable gain where a number of stitches are re- quired, aud the collateral swelling is equalized by distributing the pressure of the suture throughout its entire length. This insures a uniformity of circulation in the enclosed portion, and thereby lessens the devitalization of the tissues, causing a more sure aud 1 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Nov. 1S71, p. 315.