On removal of the entire tongue by the Walter Whitehead method : with full details of the operation and after-treatment / by Edward Lund.

  • Lund, Edward.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On removal of the entire tongue by the Walter Whitehead method : with full details of the operation and after-treatment / by Edward Lund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    made with fluids, such as very thin arrowroot gruel, cold, or perhaps iced ; then after this, milk and beef tea, with other simple nutritive fluids, the greatest care being taken that until nature has advanced considerably in the formation of the cicatricial tissue, which is to be the future floor of the mouth, nothing like bread or other rough material which might irritate the surface shall be taken. To procure sleep, or should there be pain, hypodermic injections of morphia seem in every way most suit- able. They should be given periodically at stated intervals of twelve, eight, or six hours, in antici- pation of restlessness. This, then, is an operation which has been reduced to its most simple form by the energy and persever- ance of Mr. Whitehead; for in this, as in so many other instances, what we design to do is always in its early stages complex, and in its advanced stages simple. We get more and more convinced of the value of the principle which we desire to work out, and relying upon this, we are enabled to cast away those guides and helps to which we had recourse at first; and so it has been in this operation, which I have watched, growing up as it were, from a principle fully worked out by Mr. Whitehead, until the complex has become simple, and he has cast off or has found by experience that he can dispense with many of the precautions and details upon which at first he placed very much reliance.